THE 


NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT 


AND   ITS   RELATION   TO 


REMISSION   OF  SINS  AND  ETERNAL  LIFE 


BY 
JOHN  McLEOD  CAMPBELL,   D.D. 


SIXTH  EDITION 
WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  AND  NOTES 


|C  a  it  b  o  n 

M  ACM  I  L  LAN    AND    CO, 

AND  NEW  YORK 
1895 

All  rights  reserved 


First  Edition  1S55  (8vo) ;  Second  1867:  Third  i863; 

Fourth^§7ilCrown  8vo)  ;  Fifth  1878; 

Sixtli  1886.      Reprinted  1895I 

[The  Introduction  and  Notes  to  the  Second  Edition  were 
issued  as  a  separate  publication  in  1868.] 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  Atonement  presupposes  the    Incarnation,   of  which  it  is  the 

development,     ..........        xvi 

Yet  some   believe   in  the  Incarnation  who  do  not  believe  in  the 

Atonement, xviii 

Two  hindrances  to  faith  in  the  Atonement — 

( i )  Views  of  human  progress,       \J  xxi 

(2)  Views  of  the  Reign  of  Law,    ......        xxii 


Two  regions  of  divine  self-manifestation, 

(1)  The  Reign  of  Law:  (2)  The  kingdom  of  God 
The  place  which  prayer  has  in  the  kingdom  of  God, 
Theism  and  religion,      ...... 

The  kingdom  of  God  seen  in  Christ, 

Miracles  considered,        ...... 

The  Atonement  belongs  to  the  kingdom  of  God, 


xxvi 
xxviii 

xxix 
xxx 

xxxv 
xxxix 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE     ENDS    CONTEMPLATED    IN    THE   ATONEMENT     AWAKEN    THE 
EXPECTATION    THAT   WE  ARE   TO    UNDERSTAND    ITS    NATURE — 


Three  aspects  of  the  Atonement :  its  extent,  object  and  nature,         .  1 

The  third  aspect  now  to  be  considered,    ......  2 

Reasonableness  of  the  demand  for  light  on  this  subject,    ...  3 

Twofold  aspect  of  the  Gospel,  retrospective  and  prospective,    .         .  4 

Importance  of  the  internal  evidence  of  the  Atonement,     ...  6 

Conscience  testifies  to  a  need-be  for  an  Atonement,           ...  7 

Further,  there  is  in  conscience — 

(1)  A  response  to  the  testimony  of  Scripture  as  to  the  evil 

of  sin,         .........  10 

(2)  A  capacity  of  apprehending  the  excellence  of  Eternal  Life,  1 2 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


Difficulty  of  habitually  realising  these  two  opposite  states, 

Importance  of  doing  so  in  studying  this  subject, 

Belief  that  there  is  forgiveness  with  God,  the  first  demand  of  the 

Gospel,         ......... 

This  belief  found  difficult  by  the  awakened  conscience,     . 
The  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  alone  meets  this  difficulty, 
This  doctrine,  however,  involves  difficulties  of  another  kind,     . 
Due  prominence  has  not  been  given  to  the  prospective  aspect  of  the 

Atonement,  ........ 

The  righteousness  as  well  as  the  love  of  God  a  ground  of  hope, 


PAGE 

15 


CHAPTER    II. 


TEACHING   OF    LUTHER— 

Bearing  of  Luther's  personal  experience  on  his  teaching,  . 
His  commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians, 
How  he  sets  forth  the  reality  of  Christ's  bearing  our  sins, 
Luther's  conception,  1st,  of  the  nature  of  Faith, 

2nd,  of  its  results,    .... 
His  views  of  the  difference  between  the  Law  and  the  Gospel, 
God's  will  as  revealed  in  Christ  the  proper  object  of  faith, 
Importance  of  the  personal  appropriation  of  the  Atonement, 
Nature  and  limits  of  Luther's  teaching,    .... 


CHAPTER    III. 


CALVINISM,   AS  TAUGHT  BY  DR.   OWEN  AND  PRESIDENT  EDWARDS — 

Characteristics  of  these  two  writers,         .... 
Their  treatment  of  the  subject  contrasted  with  Luther's,  . 

Results  at  which  they  arrived — 
I.   Limitation  of  the  Atonement,     ..... 
How  they  met  objections  to  this  doctrine,   . 

(1)  First  objection  and  answers  to  it  by  Owen  and  Chalmers 
Consideration  of  these  answers,  .... 

(2)  Another  objection  taken  by  the  present  writer, 
An  arbitrary  act  cannot  reveal  character,     . 
Contradiction  between  the  faith  of  the  head  and  the  love  of  the 

heart,  ......... 


II.  Substitution  of  a  legal  for  a  filial  confidence, 
Reasons  for  not  being  satisfied  with  this  view, 
The  Son  alone  could  reveal  the  Father, 


CHAPTER   IV. 

CALVINISM,    AS    RECENTLY    MODIFIED— 

Four  points  of  difference  from  the  earlier  Calvinism, 
Other  differences  involved  in  these,  .... 


65 
6b 


CONTENTS. 


vil 


Assumed  advantages  of  this  system,  ..... 

The  mental  history  of  these  writers  commands  our  sympathy,  . 
Their  conception  of  "rectoral  justice,"  ..... 
Sense  in  which  they  hold  that  our  sins  were  imputed  to  Christ, 
Two  points  of  coincidence  with  earlier  Calvinism,  . 
Their  analysis  of  the  elements  of  Christ's  sufferings, 
It  does  not  accord  with  the  penal  character  ascribed  to  them,  . 
Like  the  earlier  Calvinists  they  think  of  the  Atonement  as  purelv 

legal .         .        ' 

Their  view  of  the  relation  of  the  Atonement  to  justification  by  faith 
Their  modification  of  the  doctrine  of  imputation  untenable, 
Teaching  of  Edwards  on  this  point,  preferred  to  that  of  Payne, 
Relation  of  faith  to  justification,  not  in  truth  arbitrary, 
Reason  for  examining  this  system  at  length :  its  merits  and  defects, 
The  Atonement,  even  imperfectly  understood,  a  source  of  light, 
Still  we  ought  to  desire  a  fuller  apprehension  of  it,  . 


PAGE 

66 
68 
68 
7o 
71 
75 
77 

78 
80 

83 
84 
88 
92 
94 
97 


CHAPTER  V. 


REASON  FOR  NOT  RESTING  IN  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  NATURE 
OF  THE  ATONEMENT  ON  WHICH  THESE  SYSTEMS  PROCEED. — 
THE   ATONEMENT   TO    BE    SEEN    BY   ITS    OWN    LIGHT — 


What  was  the  atoning  element  in  the  sufferings  of  Christ  ? 

The  Calvinistic  writers  held  that  it  was  pain  as  pain, 

Was  it  not  rather  pain  as  a  condition  and  form  of  holiness? 

The  staying  of  the  plague  by  Phinehas  affords  us  light,     . 

Light  to  be  sought  not  in  types  but  in  the  antitype, 

In  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  we  find  the  true  method  used, 

Consideration  of  Heb.  x.  4-10,  Ps.  xl.  7-1 1,  and  John  xvii.  26, 

Love  to  God  and  love  to  man,  united  in  Christ, 


98 

100 
102 
103 
i°5 
106 
107 
108 


CHAPTER  VI. 


RETROSPECTIVE   ASPECT    OF    THE   ATONEMENT — 

I.  Christ's  dealing  with  God  on  the  part  of  men, 

Both  joy  and  sorrow  had  a  place  in  Christ's  witness-bearing, 
This  sorrow  a  part  of  the  Atonement,  .... 

But  not  to  be  regarded  as  f>enal  suffering,    . 

II.  Chris?  s  dealing  with  God  on  behalf  of  men, 

God's  wrath  against  sin  a  reality,         ..... 

Christ's  perfectTe~SUOTlbe"  16  God's  condemnation  of  sin, 
Edwards'  alternative:  equivalent  punishment  or  equivalent  repen 
tance,  .......... 

Sorrow  for  another's  sin  not  penal,      ..... 

The  Atonement  a  development  of  the  incarnation, 

Due  repentance  for  sin  expiates  guilt.  .... 

An  illustration  of  what  is  here  meant.  .... 

Question  of  personal  identity  of  the  guilty  and  the  righteous, 
Christ's  confession  was  followed  up  by  intercession.    . 


ill 
112 

"3 
114 

"5 
116 
117 

118 
120 
122 
124 
124 
126 
127 


Vlll 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   VII. 


PROSPECTIVE    ASPECT   OF   THE   ATONEMENT — 

PAGE 

The  Atonement  rightly  understood  essentially  prospective,  .  .  130 
That  its  ultimate  reference  is  prospective,  all  admit,  .  .  .        131 

But  in  truth  its  results  are  directly  connected  with  itself,  .  .  .132 
Erroneous  views  as  to  imparted  and  imputed  righteousness,  •.  133,  134 
The  subject  of  atoning  confession  recurred  to,  .  ....  136 
The  revealer  of  the  Father,  also  the  revealer  of  man,        .         .         .        137 

Two  aspects  of  the  life  of  love  in  Christ — 

I.  Christ's  witnessing  for  the  Father  to  men,      .         .         .         .  139 

His  hope  for  humanity  closely  connected  with  His  sufferings,        .  140 

Our  hope  ought  to  have  the  same  foundation  as  His,   .          .         .  143 
Christ  revealed  the  hidden  capacities  of  humanity,        .          .         .144 

The  life  of  sonship  is  eternal  life,         ......  145 

God's  fatherliness  and  man's  capacity  of  sonship  alike  revealed  by 

Christ, 147 

How  we  ought  to  think  of  the  righteousness  of  Christ,  .         .        148 

II.  Christ1  s  dealing -with  the  Father  on  behalf  of  men,         .  .  .150 
Right   conception  of  Christ's  pleading  His  own  merits  on   our 

behalf, 150 

The  full  light  of  the  Atonement  shines  in  Christ's  life,  .         .        151 

Three  important  points  which  are  thus  made  clear,      .         .  152-154 

Fitness  for  worship  the  true  end  of  the  Levitical  sacrifices,  .  .  155 
Access  to  God  must  be  in  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  .  .  .  .157 
Superiority  of  a  moral  and  spiritual  Atonement  as  an  expiation 

of  sin,  .         .         .          .         .          .         .         .         .         .158 

Error  of  supposing  that  the  fatherliness  and  the  righteous  severity 

of  God  are  at  variance,  .......        161 

Man  is  encompassed  with  spiritual  necessities,     .  .         .         ,164 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

FURTHER  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FIXED  AND  NECESSARY  CHARAC- 
TER OF  SALVATION  AS  DETERMINING  THE  NATURE  OF  THE 
ATONEMENT  AND  THE  FORM  OF  THE  GRACE  OF  GOD  TO  MAN— 


As  the  Mosaic  sacrifices  were  a  preparation  for  worship,  so  by  the 

blood  of  Jesus  we  enter  into  the  holiest,       .....        166 

Consideration  of  I  John  i.  5 — ii.  6,  .....  168-170 

Christ  himself  the  propitiation  for  our  sins  (ii.  4),      .  .  .  .170 

Meaning  of  "making  reconciliation'"  as  illustrated  by  Heb.  ii.  17,  18,       172 
Further  illustration  from  Eph.  ii.  14. — "  Christ  our  peace,"      .          I73"I75 
This  peace  first  spiritual  and  then,  as  a  consequence,  legal,       .  176-178 

An  Atonement  which  is  morally  and  spiritually  adequate,   will  of 

necessity  be  also  legally  adequate,       .         .         .         .         .         .179 

"  He  suffered,  therefore  I  shall  not  suffer." — this  view  considered,    .        180 
Reconciliation  to  "the  Father  of  spirits"  the  essence  of  salvation,    .        180 


CONTENTS. 


IX 


PAGE 

We  cannot  too  soon  present  the  Father  to  awakened  sinners,    .         .  186 
St.  Paul's  argument  in  Gal.  iii.  17  accords  with  this  view,        .         .  187 
Faith  the  highest  righteousness  because  in  it  glory  was  given  to  God,  188 
A  common  error  as  to  I  Cor.  i.  30,  "Christ  made  unto  us  righteous- 
ness," &c, 190 

^o  fiction  need  be  introduced  into  the  doctrine  of  justification,           .  192 

Illustration  of  this  derived  from  Rom.  vii.  24,  25,  and  viii.  1,  2,       .  193 

Summary  of  what  has  been  advanced  in  this  chapter,        .          .          .  196 

CHAPTER   IX. 


THE 


NTERCESSION  WHICH  WAS  AN  ELEMENT  IN  THE  ATONEMENT 
CONSIDERED  AS  PRAYER — 


How  this  chapter  is  related  to  the  foregoing,  .... 
Christ's  work  not  to  be  thought  of  as  the  acting  out  of  a  plan,  .  kS 
Special  difficulty  of  realising  Christ's  intercession  for  men, 
How  was  intercession  necessary  ?     Answer  to  the  question, 
The  intercession  and  the  Father's  response  to  it  alike  realities, 
Real  source  of  our  difficulty  in  regard  to  Prayer, 
Bearing  of  these  considerations  on  our  own  religious  life, 


197 
198 
199 
202 
204 
205 
206 


CHAPTER  X. 


THE    ATONEMENT,     AS    ILLUSTRATED     BY    THE    DETAILS    OF    THE 
SACRED    NARRATIVE — 


The  outward  course  of  Christ's  life,  now  to  be  considered, 

Christ's  inward  life  developed  through  outward  circumstances, 

Significance  for  us  of  the  private  life  of  our  Lord, 

His  public  ministry:  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 

The  life  of  Sonship  as  presented  in  His  ministry, 

Christ's  sufferings  as  anticipated  by  Flimself,    . 

The  agony  in  the  Garden,        .... 


208 
210 
212 
214 

215 
216-218 
.   218 


CHAPTER  XL 

HOW  WE  ARE  TO  CONCEIVE  OF  THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST, 
DURING  THAT  CLOSING  PERIOD  OF  WHICH  SUFFERING  WAS 
THE    DISTINCTIVE   CHARACTER— 


Two  opposite  ways  in  which  the  subject  has  been  approached,  .       219 

Both  errors  arise  from  regarding  the  sufferings  as  penal  and  so  as 

sufferings  merely,       .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .220 

Christ's  sufferings  (1)  as  related  to  the  life  of  Sonship  and  (2)  as  in- 
tended to  be  shared  in  by  His  disciples,      ....         222-224 

The  life  in  the  Father's  favour,  untouched  by  the  permitted  suffering,       225 
Importance  of  taking  into  account  the  mind  in  which  He  suffered,    .       227 
The  cross  as  implying  shame,  .....  .        228,  229 

In  what  sense  the  favour  of  man  is  to  be  desired,      .         .         .         230-232 


CONTENTS. 


Christ  sought  men's  good  more  than  their  favour, 
Physical  aspect  of  Christ's  sufferings, 


232 
232-234 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST,  IN  WHICH  THE  ATONEMENT  WAS 
PERFECTED,  CONSIDERED  IN  THEIR  RELATION,  FIRST,  TO  HIS 
WITNESSING  FOR  GOD  TO  MEN,  AND  SECONDLY,  TO  HIS  DEAL- 
ING   WITH    GOD    ON    BEHALF    OF    MEN  — 

L   Christ's  sufferings  as  related  to  His  witnessing  for  the  Father,       236-246 
Psalm  xxii.   to  be  taken   as  supplementing  the  narrative  of  the 

Gospels:  the  sufferings  here  seen  from  Christ's  side,       .  .237 

Detailed  examination  of  this  Psalm,    .....         237-240 
Light  thus  shed  upon  the  nature  of  Christ's  sufferings,  .         240-246 

The  continuity  of  the  life  of  Sonship  unbroken,   ....       241 

The  close  of  the  Psalm  sheds  light, — 

(1)  On  the  fact  that  the  interests  of  all  humanity  were  involved 

in  these  sufferings,         .......*       243 

(2)  On  the  way  in  which  mankind  were  to  share  in  salvation,       .       244 

II.   Christ's  sufferings  as  related  to  His  dealing  with  the  Father  on 

behalf  of  men,       ........  246-254 

Christ's  confession  of  man's  sin  and  intercession  for  sinners,  247-249 

It  was  necessary  that  the  elements  of  man's  alienation  from  God 

should  be  present  to  the  spirit  of  Christ,         .  .         .        249,  250 

True  meaning  of  being  "  washed  in  the  blood  of  Christ,"     .  .        250 

A  moral  and  spiritual  atonement,  when  understood,  is  seen  to  be 

a  perfect  expiation  for  man's  sin,  .         .  .         ..          .         .251 

It  is  also  the  light  of  life  to  us,  ......        253 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST  CONTEMPLATED  AS  HIS  "TASTING  DEATH" 
AND  "FOR  EVERY  MAN  ;''  AND  THE  LIGHT  IT  SHEDS  ON  HIS 
LIFE,  AND  ON  THAT  FELLOWSHIP  IN  HIS  LIFE,  THROUGH 
BEING  CONFORMED  TO  HIS  DEATH,  TO  WHICH  WE  ARE 
CALLED — 


Christ's  faith  in  death  identical  with  His  faith  in  life, 
His  death  was  (1)  the  perfect  manifestation,     . 
And  (2)  the  consummation  of  His  faith  in  the  Father, 
Christ  alone  truly  tasted  death,         ..... 
And  He  alone  realised  death  as  the  wages  of  sin,     . 
Suitableness  of  the  circumstances  of  Christ's  death,  . 
Fellowship  in  Christ's   death,   a  prerequisite  to  fellowship   in    His 
resurrection,       .......... 


255 
257 
257 
258 
260 
263 

264 


CONTENTS.  xi 


Illustration  of  the  directly  practical  aspect  in  which  the  cross  of 

Christ  is  contemplated  in  the  Scriptures,     .....       265 

The  present  teaching  appeals  to  the  conscience  even  more  than  to  the 

understanding,  ..........       267 

The  view  now  taken  of  the  nature  of  the  Atonement  is  independent 

of  the  question  of  imputation,    .,.,»..       269 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

COMPARATIVE  COMMENDATION  OF  THE  VIEW  NOW  TAKEN  OF 
THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT  CONSIDERED  IN  FOUR 
ASPECTS — 

(1)  Light, 272-275 

(2)  Unity  and  simplicity,         .......  275-277 

(3)  Natural  relation  to  Christianity,         .....  277-281 

(4)  Harmony  with  the  Divine  Righteousness,  ....  281-285 
Erroneous  use  of  the  expression  "for  Christ's  sake,"        .         .  .       285 

Two  great  truths  to  be  here  remembered — 
(i. )  The  ultimate  ground  of  the  Atonement  is  to  be  seen  in  God,       .       285 
(ii. )  The  work  of  Christ  is  to  be  seen  in  the  light  of  its  results  in 

humanitv.  ..........       286 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THAT    GOD    IS    THE    FATHER    OF    OUR    SPIRITS,    THE    ULTIMATE 
TRUTH  ON    WHICH   FAITH   MUST  HERE   ULTIMATELY   REST — 

Relation  of  redemption  to  the  fatherliness  of  God  according  to  the 

view  now  taken, 290 

Two  considerations  to  be  here  noted — 

(i. )  It  is  a  special  glory  to  God  that  His  fatherliness  is  itself  the 

source  of"  saving  power,         .         .  .         .         .         .          .291 

(ii. )  Our  reconciliation  to  God  must  have  this  origin,  .         .         .       292 

True  significance  of  the  words,  "The  Father  sent  the  Son,"  .  .  294 
The  faith  that  God  is  the  Father  of  our  spirits  has  as  deep  a  root  in 

us  as  the  faith  that  there  is  a  God,      ......        296 

A  similar  faith  belongs  I  to  the  two  great  results  of  the  Atonement, 

Sonship  and  Brotherhood,  ......         297-319 

(1)  Sonship  towards  God,      ......  297-315 

Examination  of  the  view  that  "adoption"  rests  upon  a  legal  justifi- 
cation,     ..........  298-300 

"Have  I  a  right  to  call  God  Father?"  this  question  considered,  300-302 
As  faith  excludes  boasting,  so  does  the  confidence  of  Sonship  ex- 
clude self-righteousness, 303,  304 

Luther's  teaching  as  to  faith  superior  to  that  of  the  Calvinists,  .  .       306 


xii  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

But,  as  to  Sonship,  he  falls  short  of  the  Apostles'  teaching        .         .       306 
Possible  objections  to  the  present  teaching,      ....         308-310 
Progress  of  mind  often  experienced  in  reference  to  this  subject,  310-313 
Bearing  of  these  thoughts  on  the  doctrine  of  Baptismal  Regenera- 
tion,            313,  314 

(2)  Brotherhood  toxuards  men,       .....  315-319 

Brotherhood  fulfils  the  second  commandment,  .         .         .  315 

We  cannot  be  in  Christ  the  sons  of  God  if  we  refuse  to  be  in  Christ 

the  brothers  of  men,  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .317 

It  is  in  the  death  of  self  that  the  life  of  God  is  quickened,         .        318,  319 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

CONCLUSION — 

Limits  realised  in  this  inquiry,  .......       320 

Reason  has  its  mysteries  as  well  as  revelation,  .         .         .        321,  322 

Statement  of  some  mysteries  of  faith,        .....         323-326 

The  failure  of  some  attempted  solutions,  a  cause  for  thankfulness,     .       326 
The  mysteries  which  encompass  the  Atonement  need  not  be  first 

solved  before  we  can  understand  it,     .....  328 

Solemnity  of  the  question  of  the  nature  of  the  Atonement,         ,         ,       328 


NOTES. 

NOTE   TO   INTRODUCTION. 

On  the  tendency  to  resolve  religion  into  love  of  man  to  man,    .         .       330 

NOTE   TO  CHAPTER   II. 

Luther's  teaching  of  Justification  by  faith  alone,       ....       333 

NOTE   TO    CHAPTER  VI. 

"  Mediatorial  Religion, " — National  Revieiv,  for  April,  1856,  .         •       341 

NOTE   TO   CHAPTER   XIII. 

The  death  of  Christ ,         .       349 


List  of  Books  quoted,  with  the  Editions  from  which  the  Quotations 

are  taken, 356 


INTRODUCTION. 


T  AVAIL  myself  of  a  second  edition  to  ask  attention  to 
A  some  thoughts  in  relation  to  the  Atonement  which  may  be 
a  needed  help  to  some  of  my  readers,  but  which  I  was  not 
led  to  notice  in  writing  this  book. 

That  is  an  abiding  obligation  which  the  Apostle  expresses 
when  he  says,  "  Be  ready  always  to  give  an  answer  to  every 
man  that  asketh  you  a  reason  of  the  hope  that  is  in  you  with 
meekness  and  fear."  The  freedom  of  thought  which  so  strongly 
characterises  our  time,  and  the  liberty  taken  to  regard  all 
questions  on  the  subject  of  Religion  as  open  questions,  render 
due  obedience  to  this  charge  of  the  Apostle's  peculiarly  difficult: 
the  range  of  the  questions  which  may  be  put  to  us  is  so  wide, 
and  our  answers  are  so  likely  to  suggest  previous  questions. 
At  the  same  time  the  field  in  which  we  are  to  look  for  our 
answer  may  be  regarded  as  narrowed  by  the  words  "  a  reason 
of  the  hope  that  is  in  you."  The  Apostle's  "becoming  all 
things  to  all  men"  suggests  a  wide  range,  which  yet  is  nar- 
rowed by  the  words,  "  by  manifestation  of  the  truth  com- 
mending ourselves  to  every  man's  conscience  in  the  sight  of 
God." 

The  free  controversy  of  the  present  day  would  be  regarded 
with  less  anxiety  and  with  more  hope  than  it  often  is  if  this 
were  clearly  seen  to  be  the  course  to  which  that  controversy 
shuts  us  up.  We  believe  that  God  is,  that  God  is  light,  that  it 
is  His  will  that  in  His  light  we  should  see  light.     We,  therefore, 

S  B 


xiv  INTRODUCTION. 

cannot  recognise,  in  the  questioning  and  controversy  which 
abound,  a  reason  for  suspended  faith  or  universal  doubt  on 
the  one  hand,  or  for  an  unreasoning  and  blind  faith  on  the 
other. 

It  has  been  said — and  some  have  received  it  as  at  this  time 
a  word  in  season,  ministering  comfort  which  many  have  needed 
— that  "there  lives  more  faith  in  honest  doubt"  "than  in  half 
the  creeds."  The  creeds  may,  we  know,  be  held  without  faith, 
that  living  faith  which  alone  God  accepts,  and  doubt,  if  honest, 
may  be  assumed  to  have  some  true  faith  underlying  it.  The 
very  freedom  and  strength  to  question  are  often  traceable  to 
the  firm  hold  of  something  true.  The  faith  of  righteousness 
sustains  the  spirit  in  asking,  "  Is  this  righteous?"  so  long  as  the 
righteousness  of  what  is  presented  to  us  is  not  yet  discerned. 
The  faith  that  God  is  love  is  often  the  root  of  questionings 
which  have  not  yet  issued  in  the  apprehension  of  the  divine 
love  present  in  thm  mnrprrn'ng  which  the  questions  arise ; 
while  on  the  other  hand,  many  things  are  received  in  a  way  of 
blind  submission  to  authority  which,  in  the  light  of  righteousness 
and  love,  would  be  seen  to  be  unbelievable.  It  is  also  true 
that  at  the  present  time  the  expression  of  doubt  is  often  con- 
nected with  an  undeniable  earnestness  of  spirit  which  contrasts 
strongly  with  the  levity  of  the  scepticism  of  a  former  age  :  and 
we  cannot  be  too  thankful  for  the  tenderness  and  respect  with 
which  many  deep  thinkers,  themselves  strong  in  faith,  deal  with 
the  earnest  and  anxious  doubting  to  which  I  refer. 

Yet  two  considerations  seem  here  to  ask  our  attention  : 
First,  the  jealousy  for  God  as  never  asking  for  any  but  "  a 
reasonable  service,"  while  "without  faith  it  is  impossible  to 
please  Him,"  which  should  always  be  present  in  our  dealing 
with  unbelief.  However  tenderly  it  becomes  us  to  deal  with 
difficulties  of  other  minds,  however  much  we  should  guard 
against  measuring  their  responsibility  by  our  own  light,  we 
should  never  feel,  or  appear  to  feel,  as  if  we  admitted  that  God 
had  left  Himself  without  a  witness,  or  that  unbelief  was  more 
reasonable  than  faith. 


INTRODUCTION.  xv 

Secondly,  the  danger  to  which  undue  concessions  as  to  the 
reasonableness  of  doubt  may  expose  those  with  whose  doubts 
we  are  dealing ;  for  by  such  concessions  we  may  help  them  to 
a  self-complacency  on  the  ground  of  their  doubts — to  the  feel- 
ing that  doubting  pertains  to  a  higher  order  of  mind  than  y- 
simple  faith,  and  thus  to  a  self-righteous  trust  in  their  doubting ; 
a  form  of  self-righteousness  not  worse,  it  may  be,  than  the  self- 
congratulations  of  a  blind  orthodoxy  which  knows  not  the  living 
God ;  yet  surely  not  better,  but  equally  remote  from  that  living 
dealing  with  God  which  gives  its  preciousness  to  faith  as  a  grain 
of  mustard  seed. 

I  have  in  this  volume  approached  the  subject  of  the  atone- 
ment from  the  side  of  faith ;  in  some  sense  writing  for  those 
who  believe  that  they  may__belie%e.  Yet  I  have  sought  to  have 
present  to  my  mind  whatever  I  felt  most  reasonable  or  deserving 
of  consideration  in  the  difficulties  of  those  who  doubt :  and  I 
may  here  beg  readers  of  this  latter  class  not  to  be  deterred  by 
the  title  which  indicates  my  subject  because  I  seem  to  take  for 
granted  points  as  to  which  they  would  ask  a  proof.  An  atone- 
ment, remission  of  sins,  the  gift  of  eternal  life,  and  a  relation  of 
the  two  last  to  the  first,  all  are  in  one  view  assumed  ;  yet  my 
hope  has  been  that  the  manner  of  considering  them  will  be  in 
effect  a  successful  argument  for  their  reality.  For  I  believe 
that  Christianity  has  its  highest  and  ultimate  evidence  in  what 
it  is;  that  therefore  to  illustrate  any  element  of  Christianity 
successfully  is  to  establish  its  clajirjuon  faith. 

But  I  have  approached  my  subject,  not  only  from  the  side  of 
faith,  but  also  through  an  examination  of  the  forms  which  faith 
in  the  atonement  presents  in  the  systems  which  I  have  assumed 
to  be  most  in  possession  of  the  religious  mind  of  our  land.  It 
has  been  suggested  to  me  that  it  might  have  been  better  to 
have  limited  myself  to  the  exposition  of  my  own  faith,  and  this 
would  have  had  some  advantages  ;  but  the  experience  of  many 
has  justified  the  choice  I  made,  as  they  have  found  the  attempt 
to  separate  the  elements  of  truth  in  received  systems  from  the 
error  present  in  them  profitable.     I  have  not  gone  further  back 


xvi  INTRODUCTION. 

than  the  Reformation.  A  recent  writer*  on  the  ''Catholic 
doctrine  of  the  Atonement"  traces  its  development  in  the  Church 
from  the  beginning  "  historically,"  not  "controversially,"  though 
indicating  clearly  some  of  the  grounds  on  which  he  objects  to  the 
teaching  of  the  Reformers  as  that  teaching  presents  itself  to  his 
mind.  His  book  gives  the  impression  of  fairness,  though  the 
writer  may  not  have  altogether  overcome  the  difficulty  of  seeing 
a  subject  from  the  point  of  view  of  an  antagonist.  Two  things 
must  strike  one,  first,  the  great  diversity  of  views  on  the  subject 
of  the  atonement  before  the  Reformation,  as  well  as  then  and 
since,  and  secondly,  the  "  anxious  hope  "  with  which  the  writer 
looks  to  the  "  Catholic  thinkers  of  Germany "  in  closing  the 
record  of  the  past ;  for  he  thus  leaves  us  under  the  impression 
that  his  introduction  "  On  the  principle  of  Theological  develop- 
ments "  has  been  intended,  in  reference  to  the  subject  of  his 
book,  to  prepare  us  to  accept  something  which  the  Church  has 
yet  to  speak,  rather  than  to  rest  in  what  she  has  spoken. 

The  faith  of  the  atonement  presupposes  the  faith  of  the 
incarnation.  It  in  iv  be  also  said  historically  that  the  faith  of  the 
incarnation  has  usually  had  conjoined  with  it  the  faith  of  the 
atonement.  The  great  question  which  has  divided  men  as  to 
;hese  fundamental  doctrines  of  the  Faith  has  been  the  relation 
n  which  they  stand  to  each  other — which  was  to  be  regarded 
is  primary,  which  secondary? — was  an  atonement  the  great 
necessity  in  reference  to  man's  salvation,  out  of  which  the 
necessity  for  the  incarnation  arose,  because  a  divine  Saviour 
alone  could  make  an  adequate  atonement  for  sin  ? — or,  is  the 
incarnation  to  be  regarded  as  the  primary  and  highest  fact  in  the 
history  of  God's  relation  to  man,  in  the  light  of  which  God's 
interest  in  man  and  purpose  for  man  can  alone  be  truly  seen  ? 
— and  is  the  atonement  to  be  contemplated  as  taking  place 
in  order  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  divine  purpose  for  man  which 
the  incarnation  reveals  ? 

I  feel  it  impossible  in  any  measure  to  realise  what  I  believe 
in  believing  in  the  incarnation  without  giving  a  preference  to 
*  Henry  Nutcombe  Oxenham,  M.A. 


//  IA^ 


INTRODUCTION. 


xvn 


k 


a 


the  latter  view ;  and  accordingly  my  attempt  to  understand  and 
illustrate  the  nature  of  the  atonement  has  been  made  in  the 
way  of  takihg  the  subject  to  the  light  of  the  incarnation. 
Assuming  the  incarnation,  I  have  sought  to  rea1i<^  th*>  fjivine 
mind  in  Christ  as~"perfect  Sonship  towards  find  and  perfect 
Brotherhood  towards  men,  and,  doing  so,  the  incarnation^ 
has  appeared  developing  itself  naturally  and  necessarily  as  the 
atonement. 

This  attempt  to  see  the  atonement  by  the  light  of  the  incar- 
nation is  so  far  an  attempt  to  answer  AnselmV"  question,  "  Cur 
Deus  homo  "  by  the  light  of  the  divine  fact  itself  as  to  which 
the  question  is  put  j  instead  of  seeking  an  answer,  as  he  has 
done,  in  considerations  exterior  tp  that  pet.  If,  as  has  been 
my  endeavour  and  is  my  hope,  I  have  kej^vjtlnnj^ejmiits  of 
seli-evidencing  light,  it  will  be  felt  by  those  who  accompany  me 
to  that  light  that  I  have  set  down  noJhing_ashaying  a  place  in 
the  life  of  Christ  which  has  not  really  had  such  a  place ; 
although  long  cherished  thoughts  as  to  the  nature  of  the  atone- 
ment may,  in  the  case  of  some,  make  it  specially  difficult  for 
them  to  regard  the  divine  facts  traced  as  filling  with  their  true 
meaning  such  expressions  as  propitiation,  sacrifice  for  sin ; 
while  others,  hitherto  not  believing  in  an  atonement  at  all,  may 
hesitate  to  ascribe  that  character  to  these  facts,  although  seeing 
them  to  be  facts.  But  whether  the  results  at  which  I  have 
arrived  be  or  be  not  accepted,  I  trust  the  path  in  which  I  lead 
the  mind  will  be  felt  to  be  one  of  deep  interest ;  and  also  one 
which  it  is  not  presumption  to  attempt  to  tread,  seeing  thatthe 
life  of  Christ,  jstl^  light_of  hYfvtojis.  and  that  the  divine  mind 
in  Him  is  presented  to  our  faith  as  human,  while  divine,  and 
what  therefore  humanity  sustained  in  its  faith  by  the  divine 
Spirit  may  understand.  That  this  light  is  human  while  divine 
saves  from  the  charge  of  presumptionThe  attempt  to  see Jby  it ; 
yet_doubtless  that  it  is  divine  while  human  may  well  fill  us  with 
awe  while  making  this  attempt  :  rendering  our  hope  in  engaging 
in  it  not  merely  a  Reverent  use  of  the  intelligence  with  which 
God  has  endowed  us.  but  also  trust  in  our  Heavenly  Father's 


XV111 


INTRODUCTION. 


willingness  to  give  His  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  Him.  An 
intellectual  form  our  spiritual  apprehensions  must  receive,  that 
the  demand  of  our  intellectual  nature  may  be  met;  but  that 
which  is  spiritual  mustbe_spiritually  discerned,  and,  while  I 
hope  to  carry  the  understanding  of  my  readers  along  with  me, 
I  am  not  to  be  regarded  as  seeking  to  recommend  the  doctrine 
of  the  atonement  by  what  might  be  called  a  bringing  it  down  to 
the  level  of  the  human  understanding.     I  seek  rathejr  to  raise 


the  understanding  to  that  which  is  above  it.  and  to  that  exercise 
of  thought  on  that  which  is  spiritual  in"  which  wefeel  ourselves 
brought  near  to  what  is  divine  and  infinite,  and  made  partak er s 
in  the  knowledge  of  the  love  which  passejh  knowledge. 

If  the  atonement  is  rightly  conceived  of  as  a  development  of 
the  incarnation,  the,  relation  of  the  atonement  to  the  incarna- 
tion  is  indissolublej  and  in  a  clear  apprehension  of  the  incar- 
nation must  be  felt  to  be  so.  Further,  if  the  eternal  life  given 
to  us  in  Christ  is  that  divine  life  in  humanity  in. which  Christ 

made  atonement  for  our  sins,  then  the  connection  between  the 
- —        — ^^—^— ~      . 

atonement  and  our  participation  in  the  life  of  Christ  is  not 
arbitrary,  but  natural :  and  thus  the  incarnation,  the  atonement, 
and  man's  participation  in  the  divine  nature  offer  to  our  faith 
one  purpose  of  divine  love,  reaching  its  fulfilment  by  a  path 
which  is  determined  by  what  God  is  and  what  He  wills  that 
man  should  be.  This  unity  and  simplicity  in  the  grace  of  God 
to  man,  and  natural  relation  subsisting  among  the  elements  of 
our  faith,  is  "  the  simplicity  that  is  in  Christ," — a  harmony  in 
the  gracious  whole,  the  apprehension  of  which  must  strengthen 
faith. 

Yet  I  cannot  forget  that  there  are  earnest  and  deep-thinking 
minds  in  whose  case  the  faith  of  the  incarnation  and  their 
acceptance  of  it  as  the  fundamental  grace  of  God  to  man  to  the 
light  of  which  all  that  concerns  God's  relation  to  man  is  to  be 
taken,  has  issued,  not  in  the  recognition  of  the  atonement  as  a 
development  of  the  incarnation,  but  on  the  contrary,  in  regard- 
ing the  atonement  as  in  the  light  of  the  incarnation  alike  un- 
called for  and  inconceivable. 


INTRODUCTION.  xix 

So  soon  as  the  incarnation,  no  longer  regarded  only  as  a 
mystery  of  condescending  love — love  which  took  this  form 
because  of  the  need-be  tor  an  atonement,  is  accepted  as  itself 
theiigliL-to  which  the  siibiect_oXlhe  atonement_must  be  taken, 
we  are  prepared  to  find  that  all  conceptions  of  the  atonement 
which  accord  not  with  the  love  of  the  Father  of  Spirits  to  men 
His  offspring  manifested  in  the  incarnation,  will  be  rejected. 
But  we  expect  true  conceptions  on  this  great  subject  to  take 
the  place  of  the  errors  rejected.  For,  ifvthe  atonement  be  the 
development  of  the  incarnation,  how  can  we  stop  short  with  the 
facl^f__the  incarnation  itself  as  ifTt  were  the  whole  of  the 
Gospel  ?  One  reason  for  stopping  short  with  the  incarnation 
may  be  the  overwhelming  sense  of  the  deep  root  of  man's  rela- 
tion to  God,  of  man's  inconceivable  preciousness  in  the__sight 
of  God,  which  fills  the  mind  in  realising  the  incarnation — fills 
the  mind  apart  from  and  antecedent  to  all  tracing  of  the  course 
of  the  incarnate  Saviour,  in  His  working  out  of  our  salvation. 
As  divine  love  fitted  to  subdue  man's  enmity,  as  divine  power 
entering  into  humanity  and  equal  to  the  task  of  regenerating  all 
humanity,  the  incarnation  may  seem  a  Gospel  sufficient  to  meet 
all  the  need  of  man. 

Yet  our  ,'ineed  "  is  to_be_measured.  not  by  our  own  sense  of 
need,  but  fag,  what  God  has  done  to  meet  our  need.  How  little 
may  meet  our  sense  of  need,  the  inadequate  and  superficial  views 
of  the  Gospel  which  so  often  give  peace,  even  to  minds  con- 
siderably awakened  on  the  subject  of  religion,  may  warn  us. 
The  faith  of  what  the  Scriptures  teach  of  the  development  of 
the  incarnation  is  not  less  essential  to  an  enlightened  peace  of 
mind  than  the  faith  of  the  incarnation  itself.  And  if  the  great- 
ness of  the  grace  of  God  to  man  in  the  incarnation  is  enough 
to  assure  us  of  the  hope  that  is  for  man  in  God,  is  not  the 
unanticipated  and  marvellous  character  of  that  divine  mystery 
what  should  constrain  us  to  the  attitude  of  reverently  learning 
from  the  course  of  its  development  in  the  work  of  our  redemp- 
tion all  that  concerns  the  manner  of  the  love  which  the  Father 
hath  bestowed  on  us  ?    It  seems  to  me  a  contradiction  to  believe 


xx  INTRODUCTION. 

in  the  incarnation,  and  to  expect  to  understand  its  relation  to 
us  otherwise  than  through  the  faith  of  the  diidne  facts  which  are 


thejprm  whirn  HivJQg=jyjsdomJias  taken  in  accomplishing  .the 
results  which,  in  the  incarnation,  divine  love  has  contemplated. 
TheLJncarhation  jnay  itself  heJiraced  back'  to  the_Joye  which 
has  taken  that  form,  and  we  may  propose  to  ourselves  to  set  out 
from  the  axiom  that  God  is  love,  anoTthmk  that  we  can  deduce 
from  it  creation,  incarnation,  and  the  ultimate  participation"  of 
\S  individual  men  in  the  divine  nature,  gut  we  cannot,  in  con- 
tradiction to  the  history  of  human  thougfit,  assert  that  we  could' 
have  anticipated-JJie   course  of  the  divine  self-manifestation ; 

(while  we  may  and  must  thankfully  rejoice  that  God  gives  us  the 
capacity  of  recognising  His  glory  in  all  these  manifestations 
of  Himself.  But  to  be  thus  in  tkejight  of  rtvelatio?i  children  of 
the  light  and  of  the  day  is  very  different  from  stopping  short  at 
any  divine  fact,  however  high  and  ultimate,  and  substituting 
our  own  deductions  from  it  for  the  facts  of  the  Gospel.  It  is 
natural  and  right  to  ascend  from  the  facts  of  historical  Christi- 
anity to  the  principles  and  laws  of  the  kingdom  of  God  which 
these  facts  make  known  to  us.  But,  if  this  has  been  a  sound 
process  of  thought,  to  descend  again  in  order  to  rest  in  these 
facts  with  a  confirmed  faith  must  also  be  natural,  and  what  we 
shall  rejoice  to  do.  And  so  it  is  with  the  Apostles.  St.  Paul 
says,  "God  commendeth  His  love  toward  us,  in  that,  while  we 
were  yet  sinners,  Christ  died  for  us  ;  "  and  the  language  of  St. 
John  is,  "  Herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that  He 
loved  us,  and  sent  His  Son  to  be  the  propitiation  for  our  sins." 
Both  Apostles  see  the  love  of  God  not  m  ~the~mcarnation 
simply,  but  in  the  incarnation  as  developed  in  the  atonement. 

Those  who  in  former  times  gave  the  first  place  to  the  incar- 
nation, subordinating  the  atonement  to  it,  while  still  believing 
in  the  atonement,  sometimes  speculated  on  the  probable  history 
of  man  if  he  had  not  sinned,  as  what  would  still  have  implied 
the  incarnation  in  order  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  divine  purpose 
in  man.  Such  speculations  are  recalled  to  us  when  we  now 
see  faith  in  the  incarnation  combined  with  the  rejection  of  the 


INTRODUCTION.  xxi 

atonement.  What  is  left  out  of  Christianity  is  just  that  part  of 
revealed  truth  in  which  the  love  of  God  is  connected  with  the 
need  of  man  as  a  sinner ;  all,  in  a  word,  which  gives  the  Gospel 
a  remedial  character,  representing  the  Son  of  God  as  having 
come  "  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was  lost," — representing 
man  as  having  destroyed  himself,  while  revealing  the  hope  that 
remained  for  him  in  God.  Redemption  only  reveals  the  deep 
love  of  the  Father  of  our  spirits  ;  and  hence  an  Apostle,  in  the 
full  light  of  redeeming  love,  speaks  of  "  committing  ourselves 
unto  God  as  unto  a  faithful  Creator."  But  to  trace  redemption 
to  its  ultimate  root  in  the  divine  JFatherliness,  and  to  regard 
that  Fatnerliness  as  leaving  no  room  for  the  need  of  re- 
demption, are  altogether  opposite  apprehensions  of  the  grace 
of  God. 

Two  tendencies  of  philosophic  thought  which  strongly 
characterise  our  time,  favour  this  resting  in  the  faith  of  the 
incarnation,  while  rejecting  that  of  the  atonement.  I  ^) 

I.  We  can  hear  as  an  echo  of  Christianity  such  words  as 

"  Yet  I  doubt  not  thro'  the  ages  one  increasing  purpose  runs  " 

in  reference  to  the  race,  and 

"■Men  may  rise  on  stepping  stones 
Of  their  dead  selves  to  higher  things  " 

in  reference  to  the  individual  man.  For,  in  the  light  of  revela- 
tion we  see  the  " increasing  purpose"  that  runs  through  the 
ages,  and  through  Christ  we  rise  from  our  "  dead  selves  to 
higher  things."  But  speculation  on  man  as  the  subject  of 
progress  has  sometimes  assumed  what  we  feel  to  be  an  anti- 
Christian  character ;  as  when  sin  is  regarded  as  only  one  form 
of  ignorance,  deliverance  from  which  is  a  gain,  like  every 
other  advance  in  knowledge,  but  not  as  what  can  be  rationally 
regarded  with  self-blame,  penitence,  remorse.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  the  real  ignorance  which  is  present  in  sin  is 
what  that  man  has  not  yet  been  delivered  from  who  is  not 
looking  back  on  sin  with  genuine  self-blame.     To  judge  other- 


J* 


xxii  INTRODUCTION. 

wise  is  to  treat  the  light  of  conscience,  surely,  at  lowest, 
co-ordinate  with  that  of  pure  reason,  as  on  a  level  with  what 
have  been  called  delusions  of  sense,  from  which  philosophy 
delivers  us. 

But  far  short  of  this  denying,  as  we  may  say,  that  sin  is  sin, 
there  is  room  for  thoughts  excusing  and  palliating  sin  whose 
operation  is  to  hinder  the  sense  of  a  need-be  for  an  atonement. 
We_  believe  that  through  the  redemption  man  is  raised  to  a 
leveljiigher  than  that  on  which  he  stood  atjjie  first,  while  we 
see  the_God  of  creation  in-the_ God  of  redempUon,  and  accept 
the_-iinsearchable  riches  which  we  have  in  Christ,_as  the_djyjne 
purpose  from  the  beginning ;  but  to  philosophic  thought  not 
accepting  the  utterances  of  conscience  as  axiomatic,  redemp- 
tion and  the  atonement  which  it  implies  do  not  harmonise  with 
development  and  progress,  while  incarnation  may. 

II.  Another  tendency   of  thought  strongly  characteristic  of 

our  time,  to  which  I  refer  as  hindering  faith  in  the  atonement, 

I   is  that  which  has  its  extreme  evil  development  when  a  personal 

GocHsJost  to  thejhujnan  spintjn  the  uniformity  of  the  course 

of  nature  or  the  reign  of  law. 

The  reign  of  law,  making  experience  possible,  and  all  those 
results  of  experience  which  we  call  Science,  has  necessarily  the 
deepest  practical  interest  to  us  ;  while  apart  from  practice  it  is 
full  of  intellectual  interest,  and  an  ever  inviting  theme  of 
speculative  thought ;  but  its  highest  and_purest  interest  is  that 
which  jjelongs  to  it  as  the  form  which  the  will  of  God  has  taken 
in  ordering  this  fair  universe,  and  in  respect  of  which  it  is  to 
faith  a  revelationof  God" 

There  are  indeed  minds,  and  some  even  of  a  high  order 
intellectually,  to  which  the  scientific  interest  of  the  reign  of 
law  is  its  highest,  and  seems  its  only  rational  interest.  They 
are  satisfied  to  take  the  facts  of  existence  as  they  present  them- 
selves as  facts  ;  regarding  the  contemplation  of  them  as  mani- 
festations and  revelations  of  a  divine  mind  as  an  exercise  of 
speculative  thought  in  which  we  have  no  sure  footing,  into 
which  we  are  tempted  by  our  own  human  consciousness,  which, 


INTRODUCTION. 


XXlll 


they  say,  suggests  to  us  the  conception  but  does  not  justify  the 
faith  of  a  God. 

But  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  what  is  thus  rejected  as  an 
unwarranted  exercise  of  thought,  leading  to  no  sure  results,  is 
what  the  laws  of  thought  necessitate.  We  are  so  constituted 
that  the  appearance  of_design  suggests  to  us  a  designing  mind  ; 
and,  in  proportion  as  this  appearance  is  varied,  wide  spread, 
and  abiding,  our  sense  of  the  necessity  of  the  recognition  of 
design  dee_pensT  So  truly  is  this  the  case,  that  the  realisation 
of  the  reign  of  law,  which  the  ordered  universe  of  which  we 
find  ourselves  a  part  presents  to  us,  renders  the  possibility  of 
accepting  that  reign  simply  as  a  fact,  and  without  being  con- 
strained to  rise  from  the  fact  to  the  fajthjoLinind  and  thought 
as  manifested  Jn  jtke-fact^inexplicable.  Thus  to  stop  short  of 
God  is,  we  feel,  to  do  violence  to  a  deep_jnstinct  of  our  being. 

Further,  as  the  manifestation  of  design  in  the  ordering  of  the 
universe  as  we  know  it  raises  our  faith  to  a  divine  purpose  and 
plan,  as  what  we  see  being  realised,  so  does  the  same  necessity 
of  thought  which  we  are  thus  obeying  constrain  the  further  step 
of  tracing  all  the  laws  and  powers,  which  we  see  acting  together 
in  obedience  to  One  Will,  to  that  Will  as  the  source  of  their 
existence.  Here  we  are  come  to  the  point  at  which  our  own 
experience  no  longer  accompanies  us  as  light,  and  we  pass 
from  that  in  God  of  which  there  is  an  image  in  man,  to  that 
which  is  distinctive  of  God  as  God — what  the  Apostle  names 
as  His  "  eternal  power  and  Godhead."  For  here  we  pass  from 
the^relation  of  a  reign  of  law  to  thought  and  design  using  law, 
to  the  relation  of  that  reign  to  thought  and  design  manifested 
in  giving  laws  their  existence.  There  is  a  certain  likeness  in 
human  action  to  divine  action  as  employing  means  to  arrnm- 
plish  ends  ;  but  there  is  no  likeness  in  any  human  consciousness 
tojvyhat^we  must  ascribe  to  God  when  we  contemplate  Him  as 
giving  to  means  their  existence  and  their  fitness  to  accomplish 
ends.  Intelligent  beings  as  we  are,  we  find  ourselves  encom- 
passed by  a  reign  of  law  of  the  stability  and  fixedness  of  which 
we  avail  ourselves,  finding  the  knowledge  of  laws  to  be  to  us 


■ft 


J 

& 


xxiv  INTRODUCTION. 

power.  But  we  cannot  Jor  a  moment  conceive  of  the  original 
relation  of  this  universe  to  Ggd,as  that  of  an  infinite  "multitude 
of  laws  to  an  infinite  mind,  having  perfect  knowledge  of  them, 
and  using  this  knowledge  in  turning  them  to  account  in  accom- 
plishing designs  of  infinite  wisdom.  We  cannot  conceive  of 
infinite  wisdom  thus,  as  it  were,  finding  infinite  resources  already 
existing.  A  capacity  to  be  used  for  ends  of  _wisdom  could  not 
bejortuitous.  That  capacity  as  well  as  the  use  made  of  it  must 
be  traced  to  wisdom,  to  designing  thought.  It  is  quite  essential 
that  our  consideration  of  the  reign  of  law,  while  it  begins  with 
our  human  consciousness  of  forming  designs  and  employing 
means,  should  thus  pass  beyond  and  rise  above  any  conscious- 
ness possible  to  us/nT  orfler  that  the  invisible  things  of  God 
may  be  revealed  to  our  faith  by  the  things  that  are  made,  even 
His  eternal  power  and  Godhead. 

We  cannot  lose  the  living  God  in  the  reign  of  law,  if  we 
freely  yield  ourselves  to  the  necessary  relations_of_thought~in 
our  meditation  on  that  reign  even  as,  seen  in  the  physical 
universe,  still  less-l_may  say  is  this  possible  in  regard  to-the 
moral  world  :  although  the  tendency  to  rest  in  law  without 
ascending  to  God  is  manifested  in  relation  to  moral  law  also. 
There  is  this  difference  between  the  laws  of  the  moral  universe 
and  those  of  the  physical  universe,  that  we  do  not  trace  the 
existence  of  the  former  to  an  act  of  will  in  God,  as  we  do  that 
of  the  latter.  I  know  that  to  some  it  has  appeared  otherwise  ; 
.  but  to  my  mind,  to  say  that  God  has  given  existence  to  good- 
ness, as  He  has  to  the  laws  of  nature,  would  be  equivalent  to 
saying  that  He  has  given  existence  to  Himself.  The  Beiii^of 
God  implies  goodness.  But  what  we  refer  to  the  divine  will 
here  is  the  existence  of  beings  such  as  we  know  ourselves,  to 
whom  God  has  given  goodness  as  the  law  of  their  being.  And 
so  the  difference  between  the  physical  universe  and  the  moral 
universe  in  respect  of  law  is,  that  the  former  we  trace  to  the 
will  of  God,  the  latter  to  what  God  is. 

Butlwe  are  called  to  ascend  to  a  higher  region  than  pure 
Theism.     As  it  appears  due  obedience  to  a  voice  of  reason  and 


■\i«5?  ££&>>% 


,ih.ib      o:  i"rz:  i^y**«rtr^ 


INTRODUCTION. 


XXV 


to  necessities  of  thought  to  rise  from__Science jto  Theism,  so  do 
I  believe  is  there  a  corresponding  necessity  in  reason  and  the 
constitution  of  our  being,  for  rising  from  -Theism  to  Religion, 
from  the  faith  of  Godjis  God,  to  the  faith  of  God  as  the  Father 
of  our  spirits.  For,  for  us  as  God's  offspring,  there  is  intended 
a  nearer  apjproachto  God  than  even  the  apprehension  and  faith 
of  His  eternal  power  and  Godhead. 

Theism  raises  us  into  a  higher  light  of  truth  than  that  to 
which  Science  attains,  and  in  seeing  the  reign  of  law  in  its 
relation  to  God  we  may  be  said  to  ascend  from  what  we  possess 
in  God's  works  to  a  certain  possession  in  God  Himself.  The 
power,  goodness,  and  wisdom,  of  God  become  riches  to  us, — 
the  goodness  of  God  especially,  both  as  putting  the  highest 
seal  upon  the  excellence  of  moral  law,  and  as  enabling  us  in 
our  own  conscious  weakness  to  realise  that  excellence  with  a 
peaceful  hope  while  meditating  on  the  moral  universe  and  its 
yet  undeveloped  future.  Praise  also,  though  it  be  but  silent, 
wilLbe^ added  to  our  joy  jn  God  as jGod.  I  do  not  know  that 
pure  Theism  can  be  regarded  as  going  beyond  this. 

In  passing  from  Theism  to  Religion,  or  rather,  in  adding 
Religion  to  Theism,  we  are  changing  a  contemplative  position 
in  God's  universe  for  the  active  occupation  of  our  own  special 
place  as  God's  offspring.  We  are  welcoming  the  privileges, 
and  accepting  the  responsibilities  which  pertain  to  this  our 
personal  relation  to  God,  in  the  .faith  jzL  the  feelings  with  which 
God  is  regarding  us,  and  in  the.  apprehensio:o_of_tlie_  response 
to  these  feelings  which  is  due  from  us.  We  are  welcoming  a_ 
life  in  communion  with  God,  a  life  in  His  favour,  a  life  the 
lights  and  shadows,  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  which  have  exclu- 
sive reference  to  the  aspect  of  our  God  toward  us ;  the  aspect 
toward  us  of  that  divine  love  which,  while  as  love  it  is  unchang- 
ingJ_xeX_must,  because  of  its  very  nature,  ever  change  in  the 
looJk_^ilJi^vdiich  it  regards  us  according  to  our  changing  selves. 
Such  a  life,  the  interest  and  ainToT"  which  is  to  occupyaright  a 
filiaj^relationto  God,  is  at  least  conceivable,  if  only  it  be  the 
will  of  God  concerning  us,  and  that  He  has  made  provision  for 


p 


xxvi  INTRODUCTION. 

it  j  and  to  such  a  life  it  is  that  the  Gospel  calls  us,  and  it  is  in 
±ih  relation  to  it  that  it  is  said  that  God  has  given  to  us  all  that 
pertains  to  life  and  Godliness. 

Here  then  are  two  regions  of  the  divine  self-manifestation  to 
which  we  are  related ;  the  one  the  reign  of  law,  as  seen  in  the 
light  of  Theism,  the  other  the  kingdom  of  God  proclaimed  in 
the  Gospel  and  the  light  of  which  is  the  Son  revealing  the 
Father. 

As  our  connection  with  both  these  regions  is  of  God, 
what  practical  obligations  our  relations  to  them  severally  may 
imply  cannot  be  contradictory.  But  they  are  two,  and  distinct, 
though  the  former  is  subordinated  to  the  latter,  and  it  is  impor- 
tant that  we  discern  clearly  their  distinctness ;  because  though 
we  cannot  live  in  the  latter  and  forget  the  former,  we  may  give 
place  in  our  thoughts  to  the  former  while  not  knowing  the 
latter.  I  mean,  that  while  Religion  presupposes  Theism, 
Theism  may  exist  without  Religion  :  although  in  truth 
Religion  is,  as  well  as  Theism,  contemplated  in  the  most 
elemental  statement  of  the  faith  without  which  it  is  impossible 
to  please  God,  that  it  is  the  faith  that  God  is,  and  that  He  is 
the  re  warder  of  them  that  diligently  seek  Him. 

To  the  practical  demands  made  upon  us  as  related  to  these 
two  several  regions,  this  is  common,  that  in  both  we  have  to 
do  with  fixed  and  determinate  laws,  which  we  are  capable  of 
knowing,  and  to  which  we  have  to  conform  ourselves.  The 
difference  between  these  regions  lies  in  this,  that  in  our  relation 
to  the  former  we  have  to  do  with  a  work  of  God — a  system  of 
things  to  which  He  hasj^iven  existence  ;  while  in  our  relation 
to  the  latter  we  have  to  do  directly  with  the  will  of  God  ;  that 
is  to  say,  His  will  as  His  mind  and  character, — that  in  respect 
ofcwhjch  we  say,  God  is  love.  To  know' the  system  of  things 
of  which  we  find  ourselves  a  part,  and  to  conform  ourselves  to 
it,  is  practical  wisdom  in  relation  to  the  reign  of  law.  To  know 
the  mind  of  God,  and  conform  ourselves  to  it,  is  practical 
wisdom  in  our  relation  to  the  kingdom  of  God. 

And  here  we  mark  this  difference,  that  the  practical  wisdom 


*rr>*     CULc+*v*f      CL*  s%tA+-L4-4( 


XXVll 


which  the  reign  of  law  demands,  may  exist  apart  from  faith  in 
God,  while  that  which  the  kingdom  of  God  demands  cannot. 
Thus,  two  men  may  cultivate  Science  with  equal  success,  of 
whom  the  one  never  thinks  of  God — may  even  be  an  atheist, 
while  the  other  acknowledges  God  in  that  stability  of  the  laws 
of  nature,  on  which  they  both  alike  are  calculating.  Butany 
corresponding  absence  ofjajth  in  God,  in  the  exercise  of  the 
wisdom  proper  to  the  kingdom  of  God,  is  manifestlylmpossible. 
For,  while  Theism  may  be  said  to  crown  Science,  ennobling 
and  exalting  it  by  the  relation  to  God  in  which  it  contemplates 
it,  it  in  no  way  affects  Science  viewed  simply  in  itself;  but  of 
Religion  Theism  is  the  foundation,  underlying  it  as  that  on 
which  it  must  rest  or  not  be  at  all. 

The  distinction  between  the  will  of  God  as  what  has  taken 
a  fixed  form  in  thf>  rnngtitnh'np  of  things  around us,  and  the 
wilL  of  God  a^the__divine  mind  or  character  is  what  we  must 
endeavour  clearlyjbo  apprehendjmdj-ealise,  in  s&eking  to  under- 
stand  our  own  place — our  responsibilities  and  our  privileges — 
in  the_  kingdom  of  God.  What  God  is  in  that  He  is  love  is 
wha{  GodB  wills  us  to  be.  His  choice  for  us  He  desires  may  be 
our  choice  for  ourselves.  In  making  that  choice  known  to  us, 
He  speaks  at  once  with  authority  and  in  love,  expecting  the 
response  of  obedience  and  love  from  us  ;  the  authority  and 
love  on  His  part  being  blendedin  the  claim  to  be  known  as 
the  Father  of  our  Spirits,  the^obedience_and  the  love  expected 
fromjis  being  blended  also  in  the  Spirit  of  Sonship.  Further, 
what  He  reveals  Himself  as  desiring  that  we  should  be,  He 
authorises  us  to  seekjn  prayerful  trust,  expecting  His  strength 
to  be  perfected  in  our  weakness.  Therefore  the  inner  aspects 
of^our  relation  to  the  kingdom  of  GodT"to  which  as  God's 
offspring  we  belong,  are,  God^s  favour  as  our  life,  oneness  of 
mind  with  God,  as_the  condition  of  that  favour,  help  of  God 
and  strengthening  of  His  Spirit  as  our  felt  need,  in-order  to 
being  in  that  condition  ;  while  the  aspects  of  our  spirits  in  the 
measure  in  which  we  are  occupying  aright  our  place  in  the 
kingdom  of  God,  are  faith,   hope  and  love  : — "  faith"   as  the 


/ 


xxviii  INTRODUCTION. 

fellowship  of  the  mind  of  the  Son  towards  the  Father  in  the 
life   of  ?^nsh1'p    whiVh    is  Vainer   «"piirkftr)flf]   in   ns  • — "  hope  "   ill 


God_j|tccording:-ta-the— wprds  "JLLchildren  then  heirs,  heirs  of 
God  and  joint  heirs  with  Jesus  Christ;" — and  "  love,"  faith 
and  hnpp  rp«;n1Hng  in  nur  dwelling  in  love,  being  dwelling  in 
God.  Thus  we  are  receiving  that  kingdom  of  God  which 
cannot  be  moved,  for  the  coming  of  which  we  pray,  the  light 
of  which  is  the  Divine  Will,  not  yet  done  on  earth  as  it  is 
done  in  heaven,  and  which  is  the  deepest  interest  of  existence 
to  us  as  God's  offspring,  on  whom  the  light  of  the  Divine  name 
"  our  Father "  is  dawning,  and  in  whom  the  desire  for  the 
hallowing  of  that  name  is  being  quickened. 

What  most  fixes  our  attention,  in  the  practical  aspect  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  is  the  place  which  prayer  has  in  it.  God  is 
the  hearer  and  answerer  of  prayer  ;  our  aspect  toward  Him  is 
in  its  spirit  prayer  without  ceasing.  We  see  a  place  of  free 
action  occupied  by  God  as  the  Father  of  our  Spirits,  and  a 
liberty  in, relation  to  Him  conceded  to  us  as  His  offspring,  which 
permit  direct^personal  dealing^on_His  part  and  on  ours:  so  that 
1  we  are  free  to  ask  directly  from  God  what,  in  the  light  of  His 
will,  we  see  to  be  good  ;  and  He  is  free  to  grant  with  simple 
and  direct  reference  to  us,  and  in  response  to  our  trust,  that 
which  we  ask. 

That  place  which  the  fixed np^  nf  1aw;   as   what  we  may 

always  assume,  has  in  our  practical  relation  to  the  reign  of  law, 

the  character_ii£  God,  as  the  hearer  and  answerer  of  prayer, 

has  in  our  practical  relation  to  the  kingdom  of  God ;  and,  as 

Science  in  the  largest  sense  of  the  word  is  our  practical  light 

iy  under  the  reign  of  law,  so  is  Christ  the  light  of  the  kingdom  of 

U  God.     Accordingly  we  see  rejection  of  "Christianity  taking  the 

I'  "form  of  a  denial  of  the  existence  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  as 

distinct  from  the  reign  of  law. 

The  circle  of  those  is  not  large,  who,  looking  around  them 
on  the  reign  of  law  under  which  we  find  ourselves,  feel  it  enough 
to  see  that  reign  as  a  subject  of  scientific  interest,  not  rising 
from  it  to  God.     There  is,  however,  a  larger  circle  who  ascend 


INTRODUCTION.  xxix 

from  Science _to_Theism,  and  feel  the  g/77>7ijnterests  of_the 
works  of  God,  who  yet  do  not  advance  from  Theism  to  Religion. 
These  are  those  who  seem  to  themselves  to  have  come  as  near 
to  God  as  they  are  warranted  in  doing,  when  from  a  distance 
they  admire  and  adore  Him  as  He  is  revealed  to  their  faith  in 
His  works;  holding  the  due  expression_of ^reverence  on  their 
part  to  be  the  grateful  use  of  this  universe  which  He  has  made, 
in  the  exercise  of  the  powers  by  wThich  He  has  fitted  them  for 
their  place  in  it,  and  feeling  any  personal  approach  to  God,  any 
seeking  of  communion  with  Him,  still  more  any  exercise  of 
trust  toward  Him  for  a  putting  forth  of  His  power  in  response 
to  such  trust,  that  is,  anything  strictly  of  the  nature  of  prayer, 
as  an  unwarranted  stepping  out  of  man's  proper  place. 

This  jjtopjmig^sriort  in  ^heism,  not  rising  tQ-JBxligion,  has 
always  had  much  charm  for  philosophic  minds ;  while  the 
instinct  in  man  which  gives  attraction  to  Religion  has  ever  in 
some  way  or  other  influenced  the  ordinary  thought  and  feeling 
of  humanity.  How  blindly  the  religious  instinct  has  wrought, 
how  unworthy  of  the  true  God  have  so  often  been  the  ap- 
proaches made  to  Him,  in  what  ignorance  of  that  in  which  He 
delights  men  have  sought  His  favour — this  we  know  :  and  how 
far  Philosophic  thought  of  old  has  been  excused  in  its  shrinking 
from  the  confines  of  religion,  by  what  the  popular  religions  of 
heathendom  have  been,  we  may  not  judge ;  while  surely  we 
may  give  thanks  for  what  has  been  pure  and  high  in  its  Theism. 
But,  doubtless,  philosophers  as  well  as  their  unreflecting 
brethren  have  both  needed  and  shared  the  forbearance  ex- 
tended to  a  time,  at  the  ignorance  of  which  God  is  said  by  the 
Apostle  to  have  winked ;  excusing  in  some  sense  what  yet  He 
condemned  as  disobedience  to  a  light  men's  possession  of 
which  was  evidenced  in  that  one  of  their  own  poets  had  spoken 
of  men  as  God's  offspring. 

But  to  us  the  claim  which  a  kingdom  of  God  in  which  He 
makes  Himself  known  as  the  Father  of  our  spirits,  asking  for  a 
filial  response  from  us,  has  on  our  faith,  goes  beyond  that  which 
has    existed   always  in  proportion  as   our  relation  to  God  in 

— c 


XXX 


INTRODUCTION. 


II  Christ 
!f    exprej 


Christ  goes  beyond  that  germ  of  religion  which  the  words 
express,  "  In  God  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  bemg""~and 
"  He  appoints  the  bounds  of  our  habitation  that  we  should 
seek  after  Him." 

The  kingdom  of  God  as  it  asks  our  faith  is  seen  m  Christ. 
The  conception  of  God  as  a  Father, 


md  of  a  relation  to  Him 


r\ 


which  is  sonship,.  is  seen  rpalispri  in  ChH^t.  The  Son  of  God  ^y 
is seen  revealing  the  Father  as  theFather,  by  being  in  our  sight  J 
the  beloved.  Son  in  whom  the  Father  is  well  pleased.  What 
therefore  we  are  called  to  judge  is  whether  this  is  a  reality.  As 
we  look  on  Him  who  has  thus  come  to  us  in  the  Father's  name, 
hear  His  words,  trace  His  path,  do  we  find  ourselves  in  a  con- 
dition to  accept  His  claim,  to  believe  that  God  is  a  Father, 
that  Christ  is  His  Son,  and  that  the  life  seen  in  Him  is  the  life 
of  Sonship  ?  In  so_high  a  matter,  the  \yarrant  for  faith  must 
be  _as  high  as  the  demand  for  faith.  It  is  recorded  that,  when 
Jesus  was  on  earth,  a  voice  from  heaven  was  heard  saying, 
"  Tin's  is^my  beloved  Son."  This  voice  was  received  as  the 
voice  of  God.  It  was  accepted  as  the  Father's  testimony  to 
the  Son — the  Father's  __g_eal  to  the  claim  on  man's  faith  which 
the  Son  made  in  coming  in  the  Father's  name.  Is  there  at  all 
timeslrTThlTs^inFTriis  testimony  of  the  Father  to  the  Son  ?  Is 
there  such  a  drawing  of  us  to  the  Son  by  the  Father  as  this  ? 
And  is  this  drawing  what  our  Lord  referred  to  in  saying,  "  It  is 
written  in  the  prophets,  and  they  shall  be  all  taught  of  God. 
Every  man  therefore  that  hath  heard,  and  hath  learned  of  the 
Father,  cometh  unto  me?"  And  is  this  testimony  of  the 
Father  to  the  So»-m  humanity  addressed  to  us  with  a  personal 
reference  tojnirselves ?  Is  it  now  added  in  the  spirit  as  then 
outwardly,  "  Hear  ye  Him?"  And  do  we  understand  that  we 
are  thus  taught  that  the  Son  has  come  to  reveal  the  Father  to 
us,  and  to  quicken  in  us  the  life  of  sonship  towards  the  Father  ? 
If  it  be  so,  if  the  living  God  thus  teach  us  that  He  has  given 
to  us  eternal  life,  and  that  this  life  is  in  His  Son,  then  is  this 
the  highest  and  ultimate  claim  which  the  kingdom  of  God  re- 
vealed in  Christ  has  on  our  faith.     On  this  turns  our  responsi- 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxi 

bility  in  reading  the  New  Testament  record,  and  our  responsi- 
bility in  reading  the  history  of  Christianity  also;  for  though 
Christianity  may  not  have  realised  the  promise  of  its  early 
dawn,  yet  have  Christians,  being  living  branches  in  Christ  the 
true  vine,  and  abiding  in  Him,  borne  fruit  which  helps  our 
faith  in  the  purpose  of  God  for  man,  in  the  measure  in  which  it 
has  been  a  fulfilling  of  that  purpose.  No  doubt  veils,  in_the 
form  of  corruptions  of  Christianity.,  .have,  jroni-time  to  time 
during  these  eighteen  hundred  years  been  thrown  over  the  face 
of  Christ.  Human  systems,  also,  identifying  themselves  with 
Christianity,  while  diverse  one  from  another,  have  caused  Christi- 
anity to  appear  to  superficial  thought,  not  one,  but  many,  and 
conflicting  religions ;  and  we  are  not  to  forget  how  much  all  this 
has  tended  to  hinder  men's  passing  on  from  Theism  to  Religion. 
("  Ye  have  taken  away  the  key  of  knowledge  :  ye  enter  not  in 
yourselves,  and  them  that  were  entering  in  ye  hindered,"  S. 
Luke  xi.  52.)  But,  at  the  worst,  Christianity  has  never  been 
that  difficulty  to  philosophic  thought  which  heathenism  was 
formerly.  In  our  inability  to  know  what  has  come  between 
even  earnest  and  thoughtful  minds  and  the  clear  vision  of  that 
which  has  claimed  their  faith,  we  must  abstain  from  individual 
judgment.  But,  believing  in  the  abiding  testimony  of  the 
Father  to  the  Son  in  the  Spirit,  we  believe  in  a  corresponding 
abiding  responsibility  for  the  due  response  of  faith  on  men's 
part.  This  is  a  responsibility  which  men  cannot  put  from  them 
in  considering  the  claim  which  the  kingdom  of  God  has  on 
their  faith.  Is  Divine  Fatherhood,  and  Divine  Sonship,  and 
the  love  of  God  as  contemplating  for  us,  God's  offspring, 
participation  in  the  Divine  Sonship,  a  conception  which  com- 
mands faith — a  faith  harmonizing  with  while  transcending  the 
elements  of  our  previous  faith  in  God  ?  Our  affirmative  answer 
to  this  question  is,  however,  rightly  given  only  if  given  in  the 
light  of  God  ;  and  we  must  be  careful  njntjr^plead  with  others 
on  lower  ground  than  that  on  which  Ave  stand  _ourselves  ;  viz., 
the  ground  on  which  we  ieeXjHaL^uO^cjd-SXoodT-Aviieji  He 
came  to  men  in  the  Father's  name,  and  complained  that  so 


xxxii  INTRODUCTION. 

coming  He  hadjiot  hqen  rpreivprl  hy  them.  While  He  was 
come  to~make  known  the  Father  by  being  in  men's  sight  the 
Son  in  whom  the  Father  was  well  pleased,  He  constantly 
assumed  that  His  commending  of  the  Father  ought  to  have  a 
response  in  their  spirits — that  the  footing  of  fathediness  in  God 
on  which  He  rested  the  demand  for  faith  toward  God  should 
at  once  justify  that  demand  to  the  conscience  of  those  to  whom 
He  addressed  it.  "  Not  a  sparrow  shall  fall  on  the  ground 
without  your  Father."  "Your  Father  knoweth  that  ye  have 
need  of  these  things."  For  we  may  say  that  the  one  postu- 
late in  all  His  teaching  of  faith,  and  reproof  for  the  want  of 
faith,  was  that  those  to  whom  He  was  speaking,  were,  and 
ought  to  know  themselves,  God's  offspring.  Is  it  not  thus  that 
we  are  to  understand  the  words  "  Whosoever  shall  not  receive 
the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child  shall  in  no  wise  enter 
therein,"  and,  "  I  thank  thee,  O  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and 
earth,  that  thou  hast  hid  these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent, 
and  hast  revealed  them  unto  babes?"  The  receiving  as  little 
children  God's  kingdom,  His  being  revealed  to  babes,  contem- 
plates not  a  blind  credulity,  nor  even  teachableness  in  any 
merely  general  sense,  but  the  welcome  to  a  Father's  voice 
which  is  the  germ  of  the  life  of"  SonsHip7a  spiritual  instinct 
belongingto  our  relation  to  the  Father  of  our  spirits:  We 
must  therefore  be  careful,  in  claiming  iaith  for  the  kingdom  of 
God,  to  occupy,  as  I  have  said,  the  ground  which  our  Lord 
occupied,  to  assume  the  reasonableness  in  the  demand  we 
make  which  He  assumed,  and  that,  in  respect  of  the  divine 
dealing  with  men's  spirits  in  the  Spirit,  we  in  our  pleading  for 
faith  are  not  alone,  for  the  Father  is  with  us.  In  following 
tHis  course  we  are  only  doing  as  to  the  highest  obligation  which 
rests  on  the  human  spirit  what  is  done  in  all  sound  and  health- 
ful teaching  of  morality,  viz.,  looking  for  and  seeking  to  awaken 
an  inward  response  in  the  taught.  And  in  truth  no  other  course 
is  compatible  with  the  assumption  that  men  ought  to  know 
God,  and  trust  God  as  a  Father. 

This  however  is  no  reason  for  not  attempting  to  meet,  in  so 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxiii 

far  as  our  understanding  of  their  jcqental  position  may  enable 
us  to  do  so,  djfficulti£S__Q_f  other  minds_  whose  habits  of  pure 
scientific  investigation  are  tojjiem  a  temptation  to  approach 
the  claim   of  the   kingdom   of  God  on   our_Jaith_  by  a  wrong 
path,  causing  them  to  ask  for  a  kind  of  evidence  nor,  proper  to 
the  subject,  and  so  hindering  their  weighing  fairly_vvhat  belongs 
|  to  it.     No  scientific  study  of  the  phenomena  which  imply  a 
reign  of  law  could  ever  have  issued  in  the  discovery  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.     But  neither  can  it  issue  in  any  discovery 
that  contradicts  the  existence  of  that  kingdom  ;  nor  can  any 
mind  in  the  light  of  the  kingdom  of  God  hesitate  to  conclude 
that  if  such  seeming  contradiction  arise  there  is  implied  the  pre- 
sence of  error,  either  as  to  facts  or  as  to  conclusions  from  facts. 
Considering  the  universality  of  the  obligation  to  be  in  the 
light  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  the  consequent  universality 
of  the   divine    provision   for    meeting   this    obligation,    while 
Science  is  the  calling  of  the  few,  and  ability  to  weigh  its  evid- 
ence aright  the  endowment  of  exceptional  men,  it  seems  to  me 
altogether    reasonable    to  ask   from    scientific  men  that   they 
should   first  deal  with  the  claim  which  the  kingdom   of  God 
makes  on  their  faith,  as  what  is  addressed  to  them  in  common 
with  all  other  men,  and,  as  men  judge  of  that  claim,  and _fe&L 
no  Hberty__t£L.reeall  their  acceptance  of  it  once  given  on  its  own 
proper  evidence  because  of  difficulties  met  in  another  region 
where  there~is  no  corresponding  responsibility  for  knowledge, 
nor^universality  of  provision   for   attaining,  it.      This  we  are 
entitled,    I  think,   to   urge,   irrespective    of  the   fact  that   the 
difficulties  here  felt  by  some  men  of  science  are  not  felt  by  all, 
not  by  some  having  the  highest  place  in  science,  nor  by  some 
taking  the   subject  of  the  reign   of  law  to  the  light  of  large 
philosophic  thought  on  that  subject  viewed  in  itself.     Never- 
theless it  is  the  part  of  brotherhood,  and  due  from  those  who, 
believing  in  God  as  the  hearer  and  answerer  of  prayer,  feel 
themselves  in  a  light  wjijchjiarmonises  this  faith  with  the  faith 


of  the  reign  of  law,  to  seek  to  make  others  partakers  with  them 
in  that  light.     Such  harmonising  light  must  be  welcome  even 


xxxiv  INTRODUCTION. 

to  those  who  most  feel  that  it  would  be  disobedience  to  the 
highest  light  to  suspend  their  faith  in  the  kingdom  of  God  on 
the  success  of  anything  attempted  in  this  direction.  The 
attempt  to  solve  difficulties  in  this  region  of  thought  by  divid- 
ing the  divine  action  in  relation  to  the  universe  into  depart- 
ments, not  mutually  related  nor  strictly  one  whole,  must  fail  to 
satisfy,  though  some  in  their  perplexity  have  had  recourse  to  it. 
Apart  from  the  faith  of  the  kingdom  of  God  as  revealed  in 
Christ,  the  faith  of  God  as  a  moral  Governor  is  not  satisfied, 
if,  in  the  name  of  science,  the  concession  of  self-executing 
moral  laws  is  offered  as  parallel  to  self-executing  physical 
laws,  in  order  to  reconcile  the  mind  to  the  emptying  the 
events  which  touch  us  through  our  physical  nature  of  all 
moral  purpose  on  God's  part.  And  so  also  the  shutting  out 
of  the  reign  of  law,  physical  and  moral,  from  the  Father's 
personal  dealing  with  us  in  the  kingdom  of  God  is  what  no 
marking  out  of  a  distinct  region  for  the  kingdom  of  God  can 
reconcile  us  to  as  God's  offspring.  No  doubt  the  kingdom  of 
God  in  its  internal  aspect  may  seem  to  be,  so  to  speak,  self- 
contained  ;  and  in  proportion  as  we  seek  first  the  kingdom  of 
God  and  His  righteousness — that  kingdom  which  is  neither 
meat  nor  drink,  but  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy  in  the 
Holy  Ghost — the  words  "  Ask  and  ye  shall  receive,  seek  and 
ye  shall  find,  knock  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you  "  are  felt 
to  have  their  supreme  interest  in  their  relation  to  the  words 
with  which  they  seem  more  immediately  connected,  viz.,  "  If 
ye  then,  being  evil,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts  unto  your 
children,  how  much  more  shall  your  father  which  is  in  heaven 
give  His  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  Him?"  But  the  spirit 
of  sonship  in  us  forbids__our  recognising  any  limitationJto_the 
freedom  of  God  in  the  directness  of  His  dealing  with  us  in  all 
things  as  our  Father,  or  restriction  of  our  freedom  in  that  direct 
dealing  with  God  and  trust  in  Him,  in  respect  of  which  we 
are  authorised  to  u  be  carelul  for  nothing,  but  irTejEerj^hmg-  by 
prayer  and  supplication  with  thanksgiving  "  to  let  "  our  requests 
be^iaoTe  Tcnown  urTtfTITodT^ 


INTRODUCTION. 


XXXV 


In  regard  to  miracles  as  included  in  what  we  know  histori- 
cally of  the  kingdom  of  God,  what  I  can  believe  as  to  the 
subordination  of  the  reign  of  law  to  the  kingdom  of  God  in  so 
far  as  the  reign  of  law  is  within  my  mental  horizon,  I  must 
believe  asjto  its  expansion_beyond  that  horizon,  whatever  that 
may  be.  But  whether  miracles  are  to  be  regarded  as  belonging 
to  such  an  extension,  and  to  be  traced  to  a  higher  law  in  the 
reign  of  law  than  the  laws  which  they  seem  to  put  aside,  or  to 
be  conceived  of  as  altogether  differently  related  to  God,  is  a 
question  which  may  receive  different  answers  without  affecting 
our  faith  either  in  the  reign  of  law  or  in  the  kingdom  of  God. 

Our  faith  in  the  reign  of  law  has,  as  we  have  seen,  two 
aspects  :  first,  as  seen  realising  divine  thoughts  and  fulfilling 
divine  purposes ;  and  secondly,  as  deriving  its  existence  from 
God.  In  the  first  view,  God  is  seen  using  means  to  ends  ;  in 
the  second,  giving^^existence^to  mean&r  This  latter  view  brings 
us  direct  to  the  will  of,  God,  as  acting  not  mediately  but  im- 
mediately,  and  all  observation  of  God's  acting  mediately  thus 
takes  us  up  ultimately  to  His  acting  immediately.  It  appears 
to  me  that  we  do  not  know  enough  to  say  as  to  anything  that 
transcends  our  knowledge  of  the  reign  of  law,  in  which  way 
we  are  to  view  it,  whether  as  belonging  to  the  system  of  law, 
but  to  a  region  of  it  out  of  our  sight,  or  as_  outside  _of  it,  and 
having  the  same  immediate  relation  to  God  which  the  system 
of  law  itself  ultimately  has.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the 
ordinary  feeling  with  regard  to  miracles  is  one  that  claims  for 
them  the  latter  character ;  but  to  me  it  appears  that  to  decide 
on  this  claim  transcends  our  powers  ;  while,  at  the  same  time, 
our  ultimate  Jkith_in  God's  "__ejgrnaj  power  and  Godhead  " 
leaves  room  for  the  question.  But  whether  we  are  to  conceive 
of  "miracles  as  only  a  special  and  unusual  use  of  the  powers 
embraced  in  a  reign  of  law  or  not,  this  is  common  to  them 
with  our  ordinary  experience  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  that  they 
implyadirect  dealing  with  God,  on  man's  part — an  accom- 
plishing of  something  through  asking  and  trusting  God  to  do 
it     All  human  acting  that  makes  this  claim,  and  is  a  reality, 


xxxvi  INTRODUCTION*. 

belongs  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  And  here  I  would  notice  in 
relation  to  miracles,  that  their  place  as  elements  in  our  faith  is 
much  more  closely  connected  with  our  confidence  in  what  I 
may  call  the  testimony  regarding  them  of  those  who  have 
performed  them,  than  with  any  intrinsic  authority  to  command 
belief  which  we  can  recognise  as  inherent  in  the  miracle  itself. 
A  miracle  has  been  defined  "a  manifestation  of  superhuman 
power,"  and  to  sight  it  is,  and  can  be,  no  more.  But  the 
manifestation  of  superhuman  power  gives  no  claim  on  our 
faith.  It  may  be  superhuman  power  in  appearance  only,  as 
that  was  which  Cortez  claimed  when  he  made  use  of  his 
knowledge  of  a  coming  eclipse  to  impose  on  the  Mexicans. 
But,  assuming  it  to  be  superhuman,  it  is  not  therefore  divine. 
It^  is  onlyjn  reality  a  faith  in  him  who  performs  it,  and  who 
claims  to  do  it  by^Jhe^nger  of  God  "  to  belieyejthatlt  is_of 
God.  That  faith  may  be  justified  by  what  we  know  otherwise 
of  the  performer  of  the  miracle,  or  by  the  divine  character  of 
the  teaching  in  connection  with  which  it  is  performed  ;  while 
there  is  also  an  instinctive  faith  in  God  which  prepares  us  to 
believe  that  superhuman  power  put  forth  by  one  coming  to  us 
in  His  name  would  not  be  permitted  to  be  without  His 
presence.  But  the  instance  Just  referred  to  of  imposture  "oy 
Cortez  proves  that  God  does  not  authorise  such  blind  confi- 
dence in  mere  manifestation  of  power.  We  must  therefore 
hold  that  the  miracle^  divides  with  the  teaching  a  joint  claim 
on  our  faith.  To  say  this  is  by  no  means  to  admit  that  the 
miracle  hangs  as  a  dead  weight  on  the  teaching  once  supposed 
to  hang  on  it.  They  are  part  of  one  divine  manifestation, 
whose  claim  on  our  faith  is  to  be  weigheg*Mn_its_totality,  and 
whose  value  to  us  in  relation  to  our  place  in  the  kingdom  of 
God  is  its  fitness  to  help  ano^ren^theji_jhe_jtauJi_  by_Khich 
we"  live  and  move  in  that  kingdom.  When  I  read  the  nth 
chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  my  faith  as  to  the  facts 
is  that  certain  men,  my  brethren,  did  certain  things  wearing 
the  aspect  of  superhuman  power,  and  that  they  professed  to 
do  them  through  direct   trust  in  God.     Thus  these  men  are  to 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxvii 

me  witnesses  for  God  that  He  invites  and  acknowledges  such 
trust.  ("Seeing  we  also  are  compassed  about  with  so  great  a 
cloud  of  witnesses,"  Heb.  xii.  i.) 

In.^eing  taken  to  the  faith  of  our  Lord,  "  The  author _and 
finisher  of  our  faith," — in  whom  itjias  its  root  and  perfect  de- 
velopment,— we  are  only  taken  to  the  highest  form  of  the  same 
thing  whichwgh^e^b^elTalrej^y^cO-n  tern  pi  ating,  viz.  direct  trust 
in  God  and  the  acknowledgment  of  thatjbnisX_ojn^od!s_part. 
What  is  here  immediately  referred  to  is  the  faith  in  which  our 
Lord  "  endured  the  cross,  despising  the  shame ; "  but  the  teach- 
ing of  the  whole  record  of  His  faith  and  of  His  mighty  works 
is  one  and  the  same.  "  Anajesus  lifted  up  His  eyes,  and 
said,  Father,  I  thank  Thee  that  thou  hast  heard  me,  and  I 
know  that  thou  hearest  me  always  :  but  because  of  the  people 
which  stand  by  I  said  it,  that  they  may  believe  that  thou  hast 
sent  me.  And  when  He  thus  had  spoken,  He  cried  with  a 
loud  voice,  Lazarus,  come  forth."  We  are  permitted  to  know 
that  our  Lord's  part  in  the  mighty  work  here  recorded  was  faith 
in  thlTFather,  prayer  and  trust.  It  was  thus  an  act  of  the  Son 
revealing  the  Father — lightened  on  the  kingdom  of  God ;  but 
which  light  it  could  not  have  been  to  us  apart  from  our  know- 
ledge of  the  faith  by  which  this  miracle  was  performed.  It  is 
in  truth  as  the  history  of  acts  of  faith  and  of  the  divine  acknow- 
ledgment of  faith,  that  the  record  of  miracles  preserved  for  us 
in  the  Scriptures  has  its  essential  value  to  us.  It  is  so  receiving 
them  that  I  find  them  no  clog  on  Christianity,  but  indeed  one 
element  in  its  power.  Whatever  philosophic  attraction  has  been 
found  in  the  work  of  trying  to  extract  from  Christianity  as  pre- 
sented to  us  in  the  Scriptures  a  pure  essence  of  light  (eliminating 
all  that  claims  a  miraculous  character  as,  if  not  altogether  to  be 
rejected,  only  causing  difficulty  and  embarrassment),  to  one 
seeking  to  walk  by  faith,  the  record  of  human  faith  and  of  the 
divine  acknowledgment  of  that  faith  is  intended  to  be,  and 
should  be,  a  most  welcome  help,  a  part  of  the  experience  of 
humanity  for  which  to  feel  ourselves  debtors  to  God  and  man. 
How  painfully  does  the  suggestion    that    our    Lord's   raising 


/xxxviii  INTRODUCTION. 

Lazarus  might  be  the  putting  forth  of  a  power  within  the  reign 
of  law  emanating  from  Himself  strike  at  the  very  life  of  the 
faith,  which,  read  as  the  record  of  power  put  forth  through 
God,  the  narrative  of  the  raising  of  Lazarus  cherishes  in  us. 
So  also  when  I  read  that  "  God  raised  Christ  from  the  dead 
and  gave  Him  glory  that  our  faith  and  hope  might  be  in  God," 
and  connect  the  Son's  part  in  this  divine  transaction  with  the 
prayer  in  dying,  "Fatjier,  into  thy  hands  I  commend  my 
spirit,"  I  understand  my.. own  calling  as  a  child  of  God  to  live 
bytlirect  faith  in  God  as  God,  and  am  made  deeply  conscious 
of  the  "distance  which- separates  such  naked  faith  in  God, 
triumphing  over  death  in  the  knowledge  that  the  fountain  of 
life  remains  with  Him,  from  man's  ordinary  walking  by  sight 
with  an  unreflecting  trust  in  tlie^atability  of  things  that  are,  and 
in^hat  promise  for  the  future  which  man  seems  to  himself  to 
hear  as  the  voice  of  the  experience  of  the  past ;  feeling  the  earth 
firm  under  him,  and  that  it  will  be  so  to-morrow,  because  it  is 
so  to-day. 

In  the  present  state  of  men's  minds  on  the  subject  oi 
miracles,  it  is  impossible  to  enter  at  all  into  the  region  of 
thought  in  which  we  now  are  without  suggesting  the  question, 
how  are  miracles  to  be  regarded  ?  But  I  am  anxious  that  it 
should  be  clearly  understood,  that  in  pleading  for  faith  in  the 
kingdom  of  God,  what  I  am  immediately  concerned  with  is 
this  aspect  of  that  kingdom,  that  in  it  God  presents  Himself  to 
our  faith  as  the  hearer  and  answerer  of  prayer.  What  lies 
between  the  Divine  Will,  willing  an  answer  to  prayer,  and  that 
answer  as  realised,  faith  as  faith  in  God  considers  not.  "  Abra- 
ham was  strong  in  faith,  giving  glory  to  God ;  and  being  fully 
persuaded  that,  what  He  had  promised,  He  was  able  also  to 
perform."  Our  highest  teaching  here  is  the  life  of  Christ  as 
Sonship  towards_  the  Father.  The^  claim  of  the  kingdom __of 
God  on  onr  faith  is  onewith  J^_daim__pf Christ  on  our  faith. 
Wh~at  I  have  now  been  attempting  to  do  is  to  fix  attention  on 
I  this  clnim1  asjnade  by  our  Lord  in  coming  to  men  i?i  the  Father's 
\    t^ame.      To    us   every  word    He   spoke   comes   with  authority 


f 


INTRODUCTION. 


XXXIX 


because  He  spoke  it.  But  we  shall  suffer  loss  if  we  forget  that 
it  wa?s~otherwise  with  those  who  originally  heard  His  words  of 
truth  from  His  own  lips.  If  we  rightly  consider  the  record  of 
His  personal  ministry,  we  shall  see  Him  ever  taking  His 
hearers  to  a  light  already  given  in  the  Spirit,  and  in  every  man  ; 
to  which  light  it  is  that  He  appeals  in  claiming  to  be  received 
because  coming  to  them  in  the  Father's  name.  Consider  that 
one  word  already  quoted,  "  If  ye,  then,  being  evil,  know  how 
to  give  good  gifts  unto  your  children  :  how  much  more  shall 
your  heavenly  Father  give  His  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask 
Him  ?  "  No  higher  faith  could  be  asked  for  God,  no  faith  so 
connected  with  the  deepest  need  of  man,  as  the  faith  that  He 
gives  His  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  Him.  Yet  the  form  in 
which  it  is  taught  is  a  question  which  assumes  preparedness  to 
concede  whatever  is  implied  in  God's  relation  to  them  as  the 
Father  of  their  spirits. 

It  is  as  havmg__a_jplace  in  the_  kingdom  of  God  that  we 
understand  the  j^tonement ;  for  it  is  to  our  personal  relation  to 
God  as  the  Father  of  our  spirits  that  the  atonement  belongs ; 
out  of  disorder  in  that  relation  has  the  need  for  it  arisen ;  to 
bring  that  relation  into  harmony  with  its  divine  ideal  is  the  end 
which  it  has  cont^mpla^  The  reign  of  law  as  such  offers 
no_place_for  an  atonement,  even  as  it  offers  no  place  for  prayer. 
The  incarnation  isjhe  foundation  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and 
faith  in  it  prepares  us  for  the  faith  of  whatever  nearness  to  God 
in  love  has  been  contemplated  tor  those  into  whose  nature  the 
Son  of  God  has  come.  But  the  incarnation  not  seen  m  its 
development  as  the  Son  revealing  the  Father  may  come,  and 
has  come,  to  be  thought  of  only  as  a  higher  region  of  the  reign 
of  law.  Christ  has  come  to  be  contemplated  simply  as  the 
mind  of  God  become  visible  in  humanity  ;  the  words  "  He  that 
hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father  "  being  received  as  claiming 
nothing  but  this  visibility.  So  understood,  they  would  shed 
no  light  on  the  Divine  Fatherhood,  and  the  Divine  Sonship, 
and  the  participation  in  the  Divine  life  of  Sonship  to  which 
it  is  the  grace  of  God  in  Christ  to  raise  us.     But  the  words 


£. 


V 


xl  INTRODUCTION. 

\  "  He  that  hath  seen_jrie  hath  seen  the  Father,"  are  ex- 
plained by  the  words,  "  I  am  the  way  and  the  truth  and 
the  life,  no  man  Cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  me."  We 
see  the  Father  when  we  see  the  Son,  not  merely  because 
ofidentity  of_will  and  characfepjn  the  Father  and  the 
Son,  but  because  a  father  as  such  is  known  only  in  his 
rejation  to  a  son.  - 


THE 

NATURE    OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

CHAPTER    I. 

THE    ENDS    CONTEMPLATED    IN    THE    ATONEMENT    AWAKEN    THE 
EXPECTATION  THAT  WE  ARE  TO  UNDERSTAND  ITS  NATURE. 

*  I  "HE  fundamental  place  which  the  atonement  occupies  in 
Christianity  gives  importance  to  every  aspect  in  which 
it  can  be  contemplated.  Of  these  aspects  the  chief  are,  its 
reference,  its  object,  and  its  nature.  For  whom  was  it  made  ? 
what  was  it  intended  to  accomplish  ?  what  has  it  been  in 
itself? 

These  are  distinct  questions,  though  the  discussion  of  any 
one  of  them  has  generally  more  or  less  involved  that  of  the 
other  two.  Certainly  to  be  in  possession  of  the  true  answer  to 
any  one  of  them  must  be  a  help  in  seeking  the  answers  of  the 
others  \  as  also  a  misconception  as  to  the  answer  of  one  must 
tend  to  mislead  us  in  our  consideration  of  the  others.  This  is 
true,  whichever  aspect  of  the  subject  we  may  regard  as  the 
most  important,  or  as  having  in  it  most  light. 

The  question  between  the  Reformers  and  the  Church  of 
Rome — the  question  of  justification  by  faith  alone — was  most 
closely  connected  with  the  second  aspect  of  the  atonement,  viz., 
what  it  has  accomplished.  The  discussions  which  subsequently 
divided  the  Reformers  among  themselves  turned  on  the  first ; 
being  as  to  whether  the  atonement  had  been  made  for  all  men, 


2  THE  ENDS  CONTEMPLATED 

or  for  an  election  only.  Much  recent  advocacy  of  the  atonement 
has  dealt  freely  with  the  third  point,  i.e.,  what  the  atonement  is 
in  itself,  as  to  which  there  was  no  question  raised  in  the  earlier 
discussions,  but  as  to  which  it  has  been  latterly  felt,  that  the 
other  questions  could  not  be  rightly  taken  up  until  this  one  was 
more  closely  considered  ;  and  as  to  which  the  advocates  of  the 
universality  of  the  atonement  have  begun  to  feel,  that  the 
received  conceptions  of  its  nature  have  given  to  the  advocates 
of  an  atonement  referring  to  an  election  only,  an  advantage  in 
argument  which  a  true  apprehension  of  what  the  atonement  has 
been  would  do  away  with. 

It  is  this  third  aspect  of  the  atonement — i.e.,  its  nature — that 
I  now  propose  to  consider ;  which  I  propose  to  do  with  more 
immediate  reference  to  the  second  aspect  of  the  atonement, 
what  it  has  accomplished,  i.e.,  its  relation  to  the  remission  of 
sins,  and  the  gift  of  eternal  life.  The  first  point,  viz.,  the  extent 
of  the  reference  of  the  atonement,  it  is  no  part  of  my  immediate 
purpose  to  discuss.  I  believe  that  the  atonement  has  been  an 
atonement  for  sin,  having  reference  to  all  mankind ;  I  believe 
this  to  be  distinctly  revealed  ;  I  believe  it  to  be  also  implied  in 
what  the  atonement  is  in  itself.  But  it  is  the  illustration  of  the 
nature  of  the  atonement  which  I  have  immediately  in  view;  for 
it  is  in  the  prevailing  state  of  men's  minds  on  this  subject  that 
I  feel  a  call  to  write. 

I  have  just  noticed  that  the  exigencies  of  controversy,  and 
the  natural  desire  to  give  a  philosophical  harmony  to  theological 
system,  have  recently  led  to  a  reconsideration  of  the  subject  of 
the  nature  of  the  atonement.  I  shall  subsequently  have  occasion 
to  notice  particularly  what  the  result  has  been  :  and  why  I  am 
not  satisfied  with  that  result  :  which  had  I  been  I  should  gladly 
have  felt  this  volume  superseded.  But  the  intellectual  exigen- 
cies of  systems  are,  if  real,  closely  connected  with  the  spiritual 
exigencies  of  the  living  man ;  and  something  higher  than  an 
intellectual  demand,  though  that  is  not  to  be  slighted  as  if  it 
were  not  of  God  also,  is  felt  to  call  for  light  on  the  nature  of 
the  atonement,  when  previously  received  conceptions  no  longer 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT.  3 

satisfy  conscience,  developed,  and  spiritually  enlightened.  The 
internal  evidence  of  Christianity  all  prize,  and  anything  felt  to 
be  a  real  addition  to  it  all  must  welcome,  though  the  freedom 
with  which  men  seek  such  increase  in  the  internal  light  of  the 
gospel,  is  various.  Some,  indeed,  may  give  too  much  ground 
for  the  charge  of  intellectual  arrogance,  in  the  demand  they 
make  for  internal  evidence  at  every  step  ;  while  others,  while 
thankfully  receiving  such  evidence,  fall  into  the  error  of  treat- 
ing it  as  something  over  and  above  what  was  needed  for  faith.  I 
believe  the  former  little  realise  how  much  morejhgy  believe  than 
they  understand ;  and  I  believe  the  latter  as  little  realise  how 
much  their  reception  of  what  they  believe  depends  ultimately 
upon  what  of  it  they  do  understand,  and  spiritually  discern  to 
be  to  the  glory  of  God.  I  am  not  now  to  write  on  the  nature 
of  the  atonement  as  one  whose  first  faith  in  the  atonement 
rested  on  a  clear  understanding  of  its  nature ;  and  yet  I  do  not 
look  back  on  that  first  faith  as  unwarranted  and  unreal.  Our 
first  faith  may  have  in  it  elements  which  are  true  and  abiding, 
although  mingled  with  much  darkness,  which,  in  the  low  unde- 
veloped condition  of  conscience,  causes  us  no  pain  or  uneasi- 
ness. As  the  divine  life  is  developed  in  us,  these  two  things 
proceed  happily  together,  viz.,  a  growing  capacity  of  judging  what 
the  conditions  are  of  a  peace  with  God  in  full  harmony  with 
His  name  and  character ;  and  the  apprehension  of  these  con- 
ditions as  all  present  in  the  atonement.  But  it  would  be  alto- 
gether in  contradiction  to  the  nature  of  that  love,  which,  while 
we  were  yet  sinners,  gave  Christ  to  die  for  us,  to  suppose  that 
true  yieldings  to  the  drawings  of  that  love,  however  dimly  and 
imperfectly  apprehended,  ever  deceive  the  heart ;  or  that  the 
hope  towards  God,  which  accompanies  them,  can  ever  disap- 
point. To  come  to  see  more  of  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face 
of  Jesus  Christ  is  not  to  come  to  see  reason  to  conclude  that 
my  hope  was  vain  while  I  saw  less.  Yet  surely,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  God  acknowledged  me  while  I  saw  least,  yet  seeing 
something  truly,  is  no  reason  why  I  should  not  seek  to  see 
more — yea  as  much  as  God  may  give  me  to  see. 


^ 


4  THE  ENDS  CONTEMPLATED 

The  kindness  and  love  of  God  our  Saviour  towards  man— die 
grace  of  God  which  hath  appeared  bringing  salvation  to  all  men 
— has  a  twofold  aspect  :  the  one  retrospective,  referring  to  the 
evil  from  which  that  grace  brings  deliverance;  the  other  pro- 
spective, referring  to  the  good  which  it  bestows.  Of  that 
evil  men  have  the  varied  and  sad  experience,  as  they  have 
also  feelings  that  may  be  interpreted  as  longings  after  that 
good ;  but  that  experience  is  unintelligent,  and  these  longings 
are  vague,  and  the  grace  which  brings  salvation  is  itself  the 
light  which  reveals  both  our  need  of  salvation,  and  what  the 
salvation  is  which  we  need  }  explaining  to  us  the  mystery  of  our 
dark  experience,  and  directing  our  aimless  longings  to  the 
unknown  hope  which  was  for  us  in  God. 

The  light  which  reveals  to  us  the  evil  of  our  condition  as 
sinners,  and  the  good  of  which  God  saw  the  capacity  still  to    \( 
remain  with  us,  reveals  to  us,  at  the  same  time,  the  greatness  of 
the  gulf  which  separated  these  two  conditions  of  humanity ;  and 
the  way  in  which  the  desire  which  arose  in  God,  as  the  Father     / 
of  spirits,  to  bridge  over  that  gulf,  has  been  accomplished.    / 
That  way  is  the  atonement ;  as  to  which  it  is  certain  that,  if 
we  were  so  far  from  seeing  the  evil  of  our  own  evil  state  as  God 
saw  it,  and,  I  may  say,  so  much  further  still  from  being  con- 
scious to  the  measure  of  our  own  capacity  of  good,  the  way  in 
which  God  was  to  accomplish  the  desire  of  His  love  for  us  we 
could  not  have  of  ourselves  anticipated,  but  God  Himself  must 
make  it  known  tojis. 

But  we  know  that,  though  the  gospel  alone  sheds  clear  and 
perfect  light  on  the  evil  of  man's  condition  as  a  sinner,  con- 
science fully  recognises  the  truth  of  that  revelation  of  ourselves 
which  the  gospel  makes  to  us.  Were  it  otherwise,  assuredly  its 
light  would  be  no  light  to  us.  So  also  as  to  the  gift  of  eternal 
life.  When  that  gift  is  revealed  to  our  faith,  its  suitableness  to 
us,  and  fitness  to  fill  all  our  capacities  of  well-being  as  God's 
offspring,  is  discerned  by  us  in  proportion  as  we  are  awakened 
to  true  self-consciousness,  and  learn  to  separate  between  what 
God  made  us,  and  what  we  have  become  through  sin.     And, 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT.  5 

in  like  manner,  I  believe  that,  the  atonement,  related  as  it 
must  needs  be,  retrospectively  to  the  condition  of  evil  from 
which  it  is  the  purpose  of  God  to  save  us,  and  prospectively  to 
the  condition  of  good  to  which  it  is  His  purpose  to  raise  us, 
will  commend  itself  to  our  faith  by  the  inherent  light  of  its 
divine  adaptation  to  accomplish  all  which  it  has  been  intended 
to  accomplish.  Nor  can  I  doubt  that  the  high  prerogative 
which  belongs  to  us  of  discerning,  and,  in  our  measure,  appre- 
ciating the  divine  wisdom,  as  well  as  the  divine  goodness,  in 
other  regions  of  God's  acting,  extends  to  this  region  also ; 
which  doubtless  is  the  highest  region  of  all,  but  which,  while 
the  highest,  is  also  the  region  in  which  our  human  conscious- 
ness, and  the  teaching  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  conscience,  should 
help  our  understandings  most.  When  the  apostle  represents 
himself  as  by  manifestation  of  the  truth  commending  himself  to 
every  man's  conscience  in  the  sight  of  God,  we  are  not  to  doubt 
that  he  so  speaks  with  reference,  no  less  to  the  atonement 
itself,  than  to  the  high  ends  which  it  contemplates. 

In  this  view  the  internal  evidence  of  the  atonement  ought 
to  be  the  securest  stronghold  of  Christianity  :  whereas  we  find 
many  who  profess  to  rest  all  their  hope  of  acceptance  with  God 
upon  the  atonement,  receiving  it  as  a  mystery  which  they  do 
not  feel  it  needful  to  understand ;  so  that  to  them  it  is  no  part 
of  the  evidence  of  revelation,  being  commended  to  their  faith 
only  by  the  authority  of  a  revelation  itself  received  upon  other 
grounds ;  while  there  are  others  to  whom  the  presence  of  that 
doctrine  in  revelation  is  a  strong  objection  to  revelation  itself. 
In  this  state  of  things  it  is  natural  to  ask,  "  Can  it  be  that 
conception  of  the  atonement  which  the  apostle  expected  would 
commend  itself  to  every  man's  conscience  in  the  sight  of  God 
which  some  thus  treat  as  an  argument  against  revelation,  and 
which  others,  while  receiving  it,  hold  only  as  a  mystery  ?  "  and 
the  latter  part  of  the  question  is  the  more  difficult  :  for  a 
rebellious  spirit  may  reject  revelation  for  the  very  reason  for 
which  it  has  most  claim  to  be  received ;  while  a  meek,  obe- 
dient spirit  may  be  expected  at  once  to  receive  and  to  under- 

D 


6  THE  ENDS  CONTEMPLATED 

stand.  For  "  the  secret  of  the  Lord  is  with  them  that  fear  Him, 
and  He  will  show  them  His  covenant." 

The  lowest  measure  of  internal  evidence  claimed  for  the 
doctrine  of  the  atonement  is,  that  conscience  testifies  to  a  need- 
be  for  an  atonement.  It  has  been  usual,  in  arguing  with  those 
who  refuse  to  concede  even  this  much,  to  urge  the  fact  that  in 
all  nations,  in  every  age,  men  have  sought  to  atone  for  sin  by 
sacrifice.  Whether  this  practice  be  referable  to  the  universal 
tradition  of  an  original  institution  of  sacrifice,  or  be  regarded 
as  a  consentaneous  utterance  of  humanity,  expressing  its 
thoughts  independently  at  all  successive  periods,  and  in  places 
the  most  remote  from  each  other,  it  is  unquestionably  an 
arresting  fact.  But,  not  to  found  a  sweeping  rejection  of  all 
the  elements  of  the  worship  of  the  heathen  on  the  testimony 
that  they  sacrificed  to  devils  and  not  to  God,  even  in  the 
highest  view  that  can  be  taken,  their  worship  was  that  of  "  the 
unknown  God,  and,  when  brought  by  us  to  a  higher  light, 
must  be  judged  by  that  higher  light.  If,  in  attempting  so  to 
judge,  one  man  says, — "  I  see  here  sacrifices  offered  to  propi- 
tiate the  divine  favour.  They  are  offered  in  manifest  ignorance, 
for  some  of  them  are  monstrous  and  revolting,  and  the  least 
objectionable  are  manifestly  inadequate  to  the  end  contemplated; 
but  still  we  must  respect  the  feelings  that  suggested  sacrifice;" 
another  may  reply,  "  To  me  the  feeling  and  its  expression  are 
alike  referable  to  radical  ignorance  of  God."  Clearly  the 
determination  of  this  controversy  must  be  sought  elsewhere 
than  in  the  historical  fact  which  is  its  subject. 

As  to  the  use  that  has  been  made  of  the  recorded  instances 
of  heroic  self-sacrifice  connected  with  assumed  divine  require- 
ments,— in  reference  to  which  it  has  been  lately  beautifully  said 
that  the  love  of  Christ  was  "  foreshadowed  in  these  weaker 
acts  of  love"  (Thomson,  p.  35), — however  much  we  must 
admire  the  self-devotion  manifested,  it  is  not  very  clear  how  far 
the  moral  element  in  the  sacrifice,  by  which  the  person  sacrific- 
ing himself  was  endeared  to  those  for  whose  sakes  he  so 
devoted  himself,  was  that  which  was  supposed  to  give  its  value 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT.  7 

to  the  sacrifice  in  the  eyes  of  the  angry  deities  whom  it  was 
sought  to  propitiate.  All  that  the  demand  implied  was  the 
high  value  of  the  offering  to  those  from  whom  it  was  required, 
and  the  offended  gods  may  have  been  thought  of  only  as 
accepting  what  cost  the  people  dearly ;  as  Moloch  received 
the  children  cast  into  the  fire.  But  if  indeed  we  are  to  con- 
clude that  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  in  the  victim  was  recognised 
as  constituting  the  virtue  of  the  sacrifice,  there  is  here  unques- 
tionably a  marvellous  ray  of  light,  from  the  midst  of  that  gross 
darkness,  shed  upon  the  nature  of  atonement. 

But  if  the  testimony  of  conscience  on  the  subject  of  the  need- 
be  for  an  atonement  is  sought  in  the  history  of  religion,  let  it 
be  sought  in  the  history  of  Christianity  :  and  let  not  this  seem 
a  begging  of  the  question.  No  man  is  entitled  to  put  aside 
the  assertion  of  a  true  man,  declaring  what  the  testimony 
of  his  conscience  is,  because  that  testimony  coincides  with 
the  man's  faith.  And  to  those  who  say  that  they  find  in 
themselves  no  internal  testimony  to  the  doctrine  of  the  atone- 
ment, we  present  a  fact  which  no  serious  mind  will  lightly  put 
aside,  when  we  refer,  not  to  the  dark  and  blind  endeavours  of 
the  heathen  to  propitiate  an  unknown  God,  but  to  the  experi- 
ence, recorded  by  themselves,  of  those  who,  in  all  ages  of  the 
Church,  have  seemed  to  have  attained  to  the  highest  knowledge 
of  God,  and  closest  communion  with  Him,  and  who  have 
professed  that  they  have  seen  a  glory  of  God  in  the  cross  of 
Christ ;  that  is,  in  the  atonement  as  the  channel  through  which 
sinful  man  receives  the  pardon  of  sin  and  eternal  life.  No 
one,  indeed,  is  called  upon  to  constrain  his  conscience  to  adopt 
the  testimony  of  the  conscience  of  others,  whoever  they  may 
be.  But  if  a  man  understand  the  nature  of  conscience,  and 
realise  how  imperfect  its  development  usually  is,  and  how  much 
the  more  matured  Christian  mind  of  one  man  may,  without 
dictating,  aid  the  faith  of  another  man,  he  can  never  make 
little  account  of  the  conclusions  on  this  great  subject  at  which 
men  characterised  by  holiness,  and  love  to  God  and  man,  have 
arrived. 


8  THE  ENDS  CONTEMPLATED 

But  the  question  is  not  to  be  decided  by  authority.  Nor 
would  I  seem  to  be  insensible — for  I  am  not — to  the  force  of 
what  may  be  urged,  even  in  reference  to  the  recorded  experience 
of  the  better  portion  of  the  Church,  as  to  the  extent  to  which 
theological  systems  and  traditional  habits  of  thought  may  affect, 
and  have  affected,  religious  experiences.  I  have,  indeed,  seen, 
in  cases  of  deep  awakening  of  spirit  on  the  subject  of  religion, 
an  identity  of  experience  in  reference  to  this  matter  under 
teachings  so  very  different  as  to  form  of  thought,  as  to  preclude 
the  idea  that  these  experiences  were  an  echo  of  the  teaching ; 
while,  most  certainly,  they  were  not  traceable  to  any  previous 
habits  of  thought  in  the  taught.  But  I  dwell  not  on  the  argu- 
ment from  this  source,  as  no  man  will  or  should  accept  the 
doctrine  of  the  atonement  because  it  has  commended  itself  to 
the  consciences  of  others  while  it  does  not  as  yet  commend 
itself  to  his  own. 

But  a  response  in  conscience  as  contemplated  by  the  apostle, 
implies  much  more  than  a  recognition  of  a  need-be  for  an 
atonement ;  nor  can  it  be  regarded  as  accomplished,  unless  the 
atonement  revealed  be  felt  to  commend  itself  by  its  own  inter- 
nal light,  and  its  divine  fitness  to  accomplish  the  high  ends  of 
God  in  it.  And  as  this  presupposes  that  these  ends  are  them- 
selves seen  in  the  light  of  God,  it  is  necessary,  before  proceed- 
ing further,  to  fix  attention  for  a  little  on  the  amount  of  the 
assertion,  that  there  is  a  response  in  conscience  to  the  testi- 
mony of  the  gospel  regarding  the  evil  condition  in  which  the 
grace  of  God  finds  us,  and  the  excellence  of  the  salvation 
which  it  brings. 

When  it  is  said  that  the  representations  of  revelation  on  the 
subject  of  our  sin  and  guilt,  and  need  of  forgiveness,  have  a 
response  in  conscience,  this  is  not  asserted  on  the  ground  of  the  rr.  £. 
ordinary  habit  of  thought  of  men's  minds  on  these  subjects,  or  \ 
of  the  feeling  with  which  they  usually  treat  the  statements 
of  the  word  of  God  regarding  them.  Men,  indeed,  readily 
enough  confess  that  they  are  sinners,  and  that  they  need  for- 
/  giveness ;  but  this  does  not  at  all  imply  that  they  understand 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT.  9 

the   charge  of  guilt    which   the   Scriptures    contain,   far    less 
respond  to  it ;  or  that  they  have  any  conception  of  the  forgive- 
ness  which   they   need  while  they  speak   about   it  so  easily. 
How  far  it  is  otherwise  becomes  very  manifest  when  the  reality 
of  sin  is   steadily  contemplated,  and  the   charge  of  guilt  is 
weighed,  and  the  testimony  of  conscience  in  reference  to  that 
charge  is  calmly  listened  to,  and  its  solemn  import  is  considered. 
All  the  experience  that  now  ensues,  shews  how  much  the  fact 
of  sin  is  a  discovery  to  the  awakened  sinner.     Seeing  what  it 
amounts  to,  he  now  shrinks  from  the  admission  which  he  had 
previously  made  so  easily ; — though  he  may  not  now  dare  to 
recall  it ;  while,  as  to  forgiveness,  in  proportion  as  he  comes  to 
understand  that  he  really  needs  it,  he  finds  it  difficult  to  believe 
that  he  himself,  and  his  own  sins,  can  be  the  subject  of  it.     As 
long  as  to  confess  that  I  am  a  sinner  is  felt  to  be  nothing  more 
than  to  confess  that  my  moral  state  is  an  imperfect  one,  that  it 
presents  a  mixture  of  good  and  evil, — that  much  in  me  needs 
forgiveness, — I  cannot  say  how  much  ;  while  I  trust  that  there 
is  also  good  in  me  which  God  accepts,  and  which  may  so  far 
counterbalance  the   evil,    I   can  easily  say,   "  I  know  I  am  a 
sinner ;  but  I  trust  in  God's  mercy."     But  when  the  light  of 
that  word,  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  strength,  and  with 
all  thy  mind,  and  thy  neighbour  as  thyself,"  shines  in  upon  me, 
and  the  clear,  calm,  solemn  testimony  within  is  heard  respond- 
ing, "  It  is  true — so  it  ought  to  be;"  and  in  proportion  as  I  am 
honest  with  myself,  I  feel  constrained  to  reply,  "  But  it  is  not 
so  with  me,  I  do  not  so  love  God,  I  do  not  so  love  my  neigh- 
bour ;"  then  the  case  is  altogether  changed.     I  am  tempted  to 
turn    away,   alike   from   the    testimony  of  Scripture,    and   the 
testimony  of  conscience, — shrinking  from  the  confession  which, 
if  I  listen  and  reply  honestly,  I   must  make.     Or,  if  I  am  too 
much  awakened,  and  too  much  in  earnest,  so  to  tamper  with 
the  light  that  is  dawning  on  me, — if  I  feel  that  I  must  look 
this  terrible  fact  of  sin  full  in  the  face,  and  do  look  at  it ;  then 
does  the  forgiveness,  of  which   I  spoke  easily  while  I  knew 


10  THE  ENDS  CONTEMPLATED 

not  what  it  was  to  be  forgiven,  become  to  me  most  difficult  of 
faith. 

Now  it  is  not  strange,  or  in  one  sense,  wrong,  that  we  should 
shrink  from  the  feeling  of  simple  unqualified  guilt.  It  would 
not  be  well  that  it  should  be  otherwise  than  both  painful  and 
terrible  to  conclude  that,  in  the  sight  of  God,  I  am  guilty  of  not 
loving  God,  and  not  loving  men.  Things  would  be  worse  than 
they  are  with  us,  if  such  a  discovery  could  be  without  causing 
both  self-loathing  and  fear.  Nor,  as  to  forgiveness,  is  it  to  be 
wondered  at  that,  when  we  really  come  to  understand  that  we 
need  it,  we  find  it  most  difficult  to  believe  in  it.  God  has 
been  to  us  too  much  an  unknown  God,  and  our  thoughts  of 
Him  too  far  removed  from  the  apprehension  that  there  is 
forgiveness  with  God  that  He  may  be  feared,  to  permit  it  to  be 
otherwise.  But,  however  painful  the  discovery  of  our  sin,  and 
however  unprepared  we  may  be  to  bear  it  by  the  knowledge  of 
the  help  that  is  for  us  in  God,  the  thoroughly  awakened  con- 
science, or  rather  conscience  when  we  are  thoroughly  awakened 
to  hear  its  voice,  forces  upon  us  the  conviction,  that  the 
testimony  of  the  Scriptures  as  to  our  sin  and  guilt  before  God 
and  our  need  of  forgiveness, — of  a  forgiveness  that  shall  be 
purely  and  simply  such, — the  forgiving  of  a  debt  to  one  who 
has  nothing  to  pay,  is  just  and  true. 

If  any  will  not  concede  this  much, — if  any  will  extenuate 
the  guilt  of  sin  by  referring  what  man  is  to  his  circumstances, 
— or  by  treating  his  moral  condition  as  a  low  state  of  develop- 
ment corresponding  to  that  in  which  intellectually  he  is  found 
in  savage  life,  and  if  the  forgiveness  needed  be  thus  reduced  to 
the  lowest  possible  amount,  until,  indeed,  it  ceases  to  be 
forgiveness,  and  there  is  room  left  only  for  a  benevolent  pity  at 
the  most  ;  from  persons  in  this  mind  I  cannot  expect  that 
they  will  take  the  next  step  with  me  in  this  path,  seeing  they  do 
not  take  the  first.  But,  although  I  can  concede  much  quali- 
fication of  the  apprehension  of  sin  which  we  find  uttered  by 
newly  awakened  sinners,  and  admit  that  their  language  is  very 
much  affected  by  their  ignorance  of  God,  and  the  perturbing 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT.  II 

effect  of  the  awful  discovery  as  to  their  own  moral  and  spiritual 
state  which  they  have  made,  I  cannot  qualify  the  assertion, 
that  the  testimony  of  Scripture  as  to  the  reality  and  guilt  of  sin, 
and  the  sinner's  dependence  upon  free  grace  for  pardon,  has  a 
clear  and  unequivocal  response  in  conscience  ;  the  recognition 
of  which  response  on  the  sinner's  part,  is  the  proper  attitude 
for  his  mind  to  assume,  in  listening  to  and  weighing  the  doctrine 
of  the  atonement. 

Nay  more,  looking  at  sin  in  reference  to  a  still  deeper 
weighing  of  a  man's  own  state  as  a  sinner,  I  believe  that  the 
experience  which  the  apostle  Paul  speaks  of,  in  the  close  of 
the  seventh  chapter  of  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  must  be 
recognised  as  the  completeness  of  that  development  of  con- 
science, which  fitly  prepares  the  mind  for  understanding  and 
welcoming  the  atonement.  I  refer  to  that  condition  of  the 
human  spirit  in  which  a  man  has  so  seen  the  claims  of  the 
law  of  God  in  the  light  of  conscience,  that  he  can  say,  "  I 
delight  in  the  law  of  God  after  the  inner  man,"  while  by  that 
same  light,  he  judges  what  his  own  flesh  is,  and  what  its  power 
over  him  makes  him  to  be  ;  so  that  he  says,  "  I  find  a  law  in 
my  members  warring  against  the  law  of  my  mind,  and  bringing 
me  into  captivity  to  the  law  of  sin  that  is  in  my  members," 
and  his  heart's  cry  is,  "  O  wretched  man  that  I  am  !  who  shall 
deliver  me  from  the  body  of  this  death  ?  "  Until,  not  only  the 
contrariety  that  is  between  sin  and  the  law  of  God,  and  the 
position  of  guilt  in  which  it  places  the  sinner,  are  seen  in  the 
light  of  conscience ;  but,  beyond  this,  the  inward  contradiction 
with  the  law  of  his  own  well-being,  and  with  that  which  he 
must  recognise  as  the  true  ideal  of  excellence  for  humanity,  is 
also  seen  in  that  light,  and  painfully  felt,  a  man  is  not  truly 
having  the  full  testimony  of  conscience  on  the  subject  of  sin, 
or  conscious  in  himself  to  that  full  response  which  is  in  man 
to  the  teaching  of  revelation  on  this  subject.  And  until  a  man 
has  come  to  stand  at  this  point,  he  is  not  fully  prepared  to 
consider  the  atonement  retrospectively,  that  is,  in  its  relation  to 
the  evil  condition  from  which  it  is  our  deliverance. 


12  THE  ENDS  CONTEMPLATED 

As  to  the  testimony  of  conscience  to  the  discovery  of  revela- 
tion on  the  subject  of  the  gift  of  eternal  life,  to  which  die 
atonement  has  prospective  reference,  the  fact  of  this  testimony 
is  not  alleged  on  the  ground  of  men's  ordinary  habits  of  thought 
and  feeling,  in  this  case  any  more  than  in  the  former.  The 
intelligent  apprehension  of  that  which  is  said,  when  it  is  said, 
that  "  God  has  given  to  us  eternal  life,"  and  the  enlightened 
self-consciousness  in  which  that  gift  is  welcomed  as  altogether 
suited  to  man,  and  the  highest  good  of  which  he  is  capable, 
imply  a  development  of  conscience,  and  a  clearness  of  inward 
light,  beyond  even  what  the  fullest  reception  of  the  teaching 
of  the  Bible  on  the  subject  of  sin,  and  guilt,  and  spiritual  death 
supposes. 

But  conscience  is  capable  of  such  development ;  and  eternal 
life  may  be  apprehended  by'  us  as  a  manner  of  existence^a 
kind  of  life,  the  elements  of  which  we  understand,  the  excel- 
lence of  which  commends  itself  to  us,  and  our  own  capacity 
for  participation  in  which  as  originally  created  in  God's  image, 
and  apart  from  our  bondage  to  sin,  we  can  discern  in  ourselves. 

I  speak  of  eternal  life — that  life  which  was  with  the  Father 
before  the  world  was,  and  which  is  manifested  in  the  Son — of 
his  own  acquaintance  with  which  as  a  life  lived  in  humanity, 
through  his  acquaintance  with  Him  in  whom  it  was  manifested, 
the  apostle  John  speaks  with  such  fulness  of  expression  in  the 
beginning  of  his  first  epistle.  I  do  not  speak  of  an  unknown 
future  blessedness,  in  a  future  state  of  being,  of  which  con- 
science can  understand  nothing  ;  but  I  speak  of  a  life  which  in 
itself  is  one  and  the  same  here  and  hereafter, — however  it  may 
be  developed  in  us  hereafter  beyond  its  development  here. 
Of  this  life  conscience  can  take  cognisance,  its  elements  it 
can  understand  and  consider,  —  comparing  them  with  the 
elements  of  that  other  perishing  life  of  which  man  has  experi- 
ence ;  and,  taking  both  to  the  light  of  what  man  is  as  God's 
offspring,  it  can,  in  that  light,  decide  on  the  excellence  of 
eternal  life,  and  on  the  great  grace  of  God  in  bestowing  it,  and 
the  perfect  salvation   in   which  man   partakes  in  receiving  it. 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT.  1 3 

How  little  men's  consciences  address  themselves  to  this  high 
task  is  too  manifest ;  inasmuch  as  ordinary  religion  is  so  much 
a  struggle  to  secure  an  unknown  future  happiness,  instead  of 
being  the  meditation  on,  and  the  welcoming  of  the  present  gift 
of  eternal  life.  But  to  this  high  task  conscience  is  equal,  and 
to  engage  in  it  is  the  imperative  demand  which  the  preaching 
of  the  gospel  makes  on  it,  that  preaching  which  seeks  to  com- 
mend itself  to  every  man's  conscience  in  the  sight  of  God. 

This,  then,  is  the  second  part  of  the  due  preparation  for 
considering  the  nature  of  the  atonement,  with  the  purpose  of 
coming  to  know  what  response  that  doctrine  has  in  the  heart 
of  man,  viz.,  that  the  gift  of  eternal  life,  revealed  as  bestowed 
on  us  through  the  atonement,  be  taken  to  the  light  of 
conscience ;  and  what  that  gift  is,  be  there  seen  ;  and  the 
high  result  that  is  accomplished  in  man  in  his  coming  to  live 
that  life,  be  truly  conceived  of.  For  thus  having  before  the 
mind  what  God  has  proposed  to  do  through  the  atonement, 
now  prospectively,  as  formerly  retrospectively,  there  is  the 
likelihood  that  its  nature,  and  its  suitableness  for  accomplish- 
ing the  divine  end,  shall  become  visible  to  us  ;  if  that  may 
be  at  all. 

These  two  extreme  points  being  clearly  conceived  of,  and 
together  present  to  the  mind  ;  and  the  evil  condition  of  man 
which  the  gospel  reveals,  and  the  blessed  condition  to  which 
it  raises  our  hopes,  being  seen  in  the  light  of  conscience, 
developed  to  this  degree  under  the  teaching  of  God  ;  the  gulf 
which  separates  them  is  seen  to  be  very  great.  We  are  con- 
templating extreme  opposites,  in  the  highest  and  most  solemn 
region  of  things  : — spiritual  darkness  and  death,  sin  and  guilt, 
the  righteous  condemnation  and  wrath  of  God,  inward  disorder 
and  strife  between  man  and  the  law  of  his  own  well-being ; — 
from  these  our  thoughts  pass  to  divine  light  filling  humanity, 
eternal  life  partaken  in,  righteousness  and  holiness,  the  accept- 
ance and  favour  of  God,  inward  harmony  experienced  in  the 
fulfilment  in  man  of  that  ideal  for  him  which  was  in  the  divine 
mind  from  the  beginning. 


14  THE  ENDS  CONTEMPLATED 

It  is  difficult  for  us  to  realise  the  opposite  states  which,  by 
such  words,  we  attempt  to  describe.     The  very  words  we  use, 

;  though  we  know  them  to  be  the  right  words,  we  use  with  the 
consciousness  that  they  have,  in  our  lips,  but  a  small  part  of 

\  their  meaning.  If  we  set  ourselves  steadfastly  to  study  their 
use  in  the  Scriptures,  and  listen  with  open  ear  and  heart  to 
the  interpretation  of  them  which  conscience,  under  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Holy  Spirit,  accepts,  we  find  these  awful  realities  of 
evil  and  good,  becoming  gradually  more  and  more  palpable 
and  real  to  us  ;  so  that  they  come  to  be  felt  as  the  only  reali- 
ties, and  existence  comes  to  have  its  interest  entirely  in 
relation  to  them.  But  the  wings  of  our  faith  do  not  long 
sustain  this  flight.  Not  that  we  come  to  doubt  the  conclusions 
at  which  in  such  seasons  we  have  arrived ;  but  that,  so  to 
speak,  we  descend  from  this  high  region  of  light  and  truth, 
and  come  down  to  the  earth,  and  to  ordinary  human  life,  and 
the  conditions  of  humanity  that  present  themselves  around 
us  ;  and,  looking  at  men  and  women  as  they  are,  and  at  the 
mixture  of  good  and  evil  which  they  exhibit, — seeing  also 
ourselves  in  others — we  practically  reconcile  ourselves  to  them, 
and  to  ourselves ;  and  the  vision  of  unmixed  evil,  and  of 
perfect  good,  fades  from  our  remembrance,  or  at  best,  from 
having  been  felt  as  that  which  was  most  real,  becomes  but  as 
an  ideal. 

One  cause  of  the  practical  difficulty  that  is  experienced  in 
keeping  our  habitual  thoughts  and  feelings  in  harmony  with 
the  perceptions  of  our  most  far-seeing  moments,  is  this,  that 
the  world  in  which  we  are  is  actually  a  mixture  of  good  and 
evil ;  that  it  presents  neither  the  unmixed  evil  of  which  the 
Scriptures  speak,  and  to  which  conscience  testifies  as  man's 
sinful  state,  nor  the  unmixed  good  which  the  Scriptures  reveal, 
and  which,  in  the  light  of  conscience,  we  recognise  as  eternal 
life.  We  are  not  in  a  world  yet  unvisited  by  the  grace  of  God ; 
on  the  contrary,  we  are  encompassed  by  fruits  of  that  very 
atonement  in  which  we  are  called  to  believe.  Nay,  the 
appearances  presented  in  man's  condition  as  we  know  it,  which 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT, 


15 


have  furnished  the  objectors  to  the  atonement  with  their  most 
specious  arguments,  are  actually  to  be  traced  to  that  atonement 
itself;  while,  at  the  same  time,  the  power  for  good  which 
belongs  to  the  atonement,  and  its  true  working,  have  no  perfect 
realisation  in  what  men  are  seen  to  be  ;  for  none  are,  simply 
and  absolutely,  what  the  atonement  would  make  them ;  so 
that,  on  the  one  side,  none  are  seen  so  far  from  God  as,  but 
for  the  atonement,  they  would  have  been ; — while,  on  the  other 
hand,  none  are  seen  so  near  to  God  as  it  has  been  the  end  of 
the  atonement  to  bring  them.  The  light  shining  in  the  dark- 
ness modifies  the  darkness,  even  while  the  darkness  compre- 
hends it  not ; — and,  even  where  it  is  comprehended,  the  dark- 
ness is  not  yet  seen  altogether  destroyed  by  it. 

Therefore  we  must,  in  studying  the  subject  of  the  atonement, 
exercise  our  minds  to  abide  in  that  sense  and  perception  of 
things  to  which  we  attain,  when  the  teaching  of  the  Bible,  as  to 
the  sinful  state  from  which  the  atonement  delivers  us,  and  the 
eternal  life  which  through  it  we  receive,  is  having  a  full  response 
in  conscience.  So  shall  we  see  the  work  of  God  in  Christ  in 
the  light  of  a  true  apprehension  of  what  that  work  had  to 
accomplish  ;  and  shall  not  fall  into  the  error  of  allowing  the 
partial  effects  of  that  work  itself  to  be  to  us  arguments  for 
doubting  its  necessity  and  reality. 

The  first  demand  which  the  gospel  makes  upon  us  in 
relation  to  the  atonement  is,  that  we  believe  that  there  is 
forgiveness  with  God.  Forgiveness — that  is,  love  to  an  enemy 
surviving  Jus  enmity,  and,  which,  notwithstanding  his-  enmity, 
can  act  towards  him  for  his  good ;  this  we  must  be  able  to 
believe  to  be  in  God  towards  us,  in  order  that  we  may  be  able 
to  believe  in  the  atonement. 

This  is  a  faith  which,  in  the  order  of  things,  must  precede 
the  faith  of  an  atonement.  If  we  could  ourselves  make  an 
atonement  for  our  sins,  as  by  sacrifice  the  heathen  attempted 
to  do,  and  as,  in  their  self-righteous  endeavours  to  make  their 
peace  with  God,  men  are,  in  fact,  daily  attempting,  then  such 
an  atonement  might  be  thought  of  as  preceding  forgiveness, 


16  THE  ENDS  CONTEMPLATED 

and  the  cause  of  it.  But  if  God  provides  the  atonement, 
then  forgiveness  must  precede  atonement ;  and  the  atonement 
must  be  the  form  of  the  manifestation  of  the  forgiving  love  "of 
God,  not  its  cause. 

But  surely  the  demand  for  the  faith  that  there  is  forgiveness 
in  God  has  a  response  in  conscience  ;  and  doubtless  it  is,  in 
part  at  least,  ignorance  of  God  that  causes  the  difficulty  in 
believing  in  forgiveness,  which  is  felt  when  an  actual  need  of 
forgiveness  that  shall  be  purely  such  is  realised.  For  it  ought 
not  to  be  difficult  to  believe  that,  though  we  have  sinned 
against  God,  God  still  regards  us  with  a  love  which  has  sur- 
vived our  sins.  Nay  more,  we  cannot  realise  the  two  ideas 
with  reference  to  man  which  we  have  just  been  considering, 
viz.,  the  evil  state  into  which  sin  has  brought  him,  and  the 
opposite  good  state  of  which  the  capacity  has  remained  in  him, 
as  together  present  to  the  mind  of  the  Father  of  the  spirits  of 
all  flesh,  without  feeling  that  He  must  desire  to  bridge  over 
the  gulf  that  separates  these  two  conceived  conditions  of 
humanity ; — that  if  it  can  be  bridged  over  He  will  bridge  it 
over ;  that,  if  that  conceivable  good  for  man  is  a  possible  good 
for  man,  it  will  be  put  within  man's  reach.  Therefore,  the 
first  tone  that  catches  the  ear  of  the  heart  in  hearing  the  gospel 
being  that  "  there  is  forgiveness  with  God,"  it  ought  not  to  be 
felt  difficult  to  believe  this  joyful  sound.  It  ought  to  have, 
and  doubtless  it  has,  an  answer  in  conscience. 

The  expression  once  familiar  to  the  lips  of  ministers  of  Christ 
in  our  land,  and  which  the  greater  awakedness  of  their  people's 
minds  on  the  subject  of  sin  caused  them  to  feel  the  need  of 
practically,  viz.,  "  that  it  is  the  greatest  sin  to  despair  of  God's 
mercy,"  surely  is  a  record  of  the  inward  sense  of  mercy  as 
entering  into  our  original  and  fundamental  apprehension  of 
God  :  "  Unto  us  belong  shame  and  confusion  of  face  :  unto 
the  Lord  our  God  belongeth  mercy,"  is  an  instinctive  utter- 
ance of  the  human  heart.  Accordingly,  when  our  Lord  teaches 
us  to  "  love  our  enemies  that  we  may  be  the  children  of  our 
Father  in  heaven,  who  makes  His  sun  to  shine  on  the  evil  and 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT. 


17 


on-  the  good,"  He  assumes,  that  the  witness  without  which  God 
has  never  from  the  beginning  left  Himself,  in  that  He  has 
given  rain  from  heaven  and  fruitful  seasons,  has  addressed 
something  in  man  which  could  interpret  the  acting  of  love  to 
enemies. 

The  atonement,  I  say,  presupposes  that  there  is  forgiveness 
with  God  ;  and  in  doing  so  has  a  response  in  conscience.  But 
this  is  not  the  question  which  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement 
raises,  neither  is  it  because  it  implies  such  forgiveness  that  it 
has  been  objected  to  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  objection  has  been 
made — but  an  objection  that  could  apply  only  to  a  false  view 
of  the  atonement — that  that  doctrine  did  not  recognise  the 
mercy  that  is  essentially  in  God,  inasmuch  as  it  represented 
God  as  needing  to  be  propitiated — to  be  made  gracious.  An 
atonement  to  make  God  gracious,  to  move  Him  to  compassion, 
to  turn  His  heart  toward  those  from  whom  sin  had  alienated 
His  love,  it  would,  indeed,  be  difficult  to  believe  in  ;  for  if  it 
were  needed  it  would  be  impossible.  To  awaken  to  the 
sense  of  the  need  of  such  an  atonement,  would  certainly  be  to 
awaken  to  utter  and  absolute  despair.  But  the  Scriptures  do 
not  speak  of  such  an  atonement  ;  for  they  do  not  represent 
the  love  of  God  to  man  as  the  effect,  and  the  atonement  of 
Christ  as  the  cause,  but — just  the  contrary — they  represent  the 
love  of  God  as  the  cause,  and  the  atonement  as  the  effect. 
"  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten 
Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him,  might  not  perish,  but 
have  everlasting  life." 

Those,  therefore,  who  object  to  the  doctrine  of  the  atone- 
ment on  the  assumption  that  the  atonement  is  presented  to 
them  as  the  cause  of  God's  forgiving  love,  are  placed  under  a 
great  disadvantage  by  this  misapprehension  of  the  demand 
that  is  made  on  their  faith.  What  they  are  asked  to  believe 
has  its  difficulties, — and  I  do  not  wish  to  understate  these  : 
but  they  are  as  nothing  in  comparison ;  and  let  them  learn 
with  thankfulness,  that  that  is  not  the  true  conception  of  the 
atonement  which  has  so  repelled  them.     That  which  they  are 


18  THE  ENDS  CONTEMPLATED 

really  asked  to  consider  as  what  it  is  expected,  being  truly 
apprehended,  will  commend  itself  to  conscience  in  the  sight  of 
God,  is  the  way  in  which  the  forgiving  love  of  God  has  mani- 
fested itself  for  the  salvation  of  sinful  men. 

Those  who,  being  under  no  misapprehension  on  this  point, 
still  draw  back  from  the  faith  of  the  atonement,  do  so  as  feeling 
a  difficulty  which  may  be  thus  expressed  :  Seeing  that  there  is 
forgiveness  with  God  that  He  may  be  feared,  and  that  His 
love  not  only  survives  men's  transgressions,  but  can  confer  new 
gifts  on  those  who  have  transgressed,  why  should  not  this  love 
be  manifested  without  an  atonement?  Why  should  not  the 
pardon  of  sin  as  an  act  of  Divine  Clemency  be  simply  intimated? 
Why  should  not  this  new  and  great  gift  of  eternal  life  be 
simply  bestowed,  and  presented  to  men  as  the  rich  bounty  of 
God? 

I  have  referred  to  the  difficulty  which  a  thoroughly  awakened 
sinner  feels  in  believing  that  God  will  pardon  his  sins,  and 
grant  to  him  eternal  life  ;  and  such  an  objector  would  say, 
"  Why  should  he  feel  any  such  difficulty  ?  Is  it  not  the 
evidence  of  a  morbid  moral  state  so  to  feel?"  Now  I  have 
admitted  that  the  feeling  in  question  arises  in  part  from  the 
extent  to  which  God  has  been  previously  an  unknown  God. 
But  only  in  part.  There  are  other  elements  in  that  difficulty  ' 
which  are  connected  wTith  the  dawn  of  a  true  knowledge  of 
God.  God's  mercy  has  not  been  previously  apprehended, 
otherwise  it  would  be  felt  wrong  to  despair  of  it ;  but  neither 
have  God's  holiness  and  righteousness,  and  His  wrath  against 
sin  been  previously  apprehended,  and  the  fears,  represenTecl 
as  indications  of  a  morbid  moral  state,  are,  I  believe,  in  reality 
'the  effect  of  light  visiting  the  spirit  of  the  man — light  as  to  the 
real  sinfulness  of  sin,  and  its  contrariety  to  the  mind  of  God. 
Admitting  that  there  is  much  perturbation  of  mind — admitting 
that  the  light  that  is  shed  upon  the  truth  of  man's  moral  and 
spiritual  condition  is  but  partial,  and  that  the  name  of  God 
and  its  glory  have  not  yet  shone  in  upon  his  soul  and  con- 
science full  orbed — still  it  is  light  that  is  visiting  the  man  who 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT.  ig 

uses  language  as  to  his  own  sinfulness,  and  the  deserts  of  hjs 
sin,  with  the  expression  of  fears  as  to  the  wrath  of  God,  which 
the  objector  would  refer  to  a  morbid  state  of  mind  ;  fears 
which  may,  indeed,  seem  extravagant,  and  almost  madness  to 
others  who  have  not  yet  taken  themselves  and  what  they 
are  in  themselves,  to  that  light  of  God  in  w7hich  he  sees  him- 
self, and  who  can  therefore  speak  to  him  of  trusting  in  God's 
mercy,  and  rebuke  his  fears,  so  easily ;  not  because  they  know 
more  of  God's  mercy  and  forgiveness  than  he  does,  but  because 
they  have  such  different  apprehensions  of  that  sin  as  to  which 
forgiveness  is  needed. 

Nor  is  the  distress  experienced  connected  with  the  forgive- 
ness of  past  sin  alone.  That  grace  for  the  time  to  come — the 
gift  of  eternal  life — which  appears  to  the  objector  to  the  atone- 
ment what  may  easily  be  believed  in  is  not  found  to  be  so.  It 
may  be  so  far  conceived  of  by  the  awakened  sinner,  and  may 
so  commend  itself  to  him,  that  he  can  say,  "  I  delight  in  the 
law  of  God  after  the  inward  man  ; "  and  yet,  to  believe  that  the 
good  he  apprehends  is  freely  granted  to  him,  may  prove  so  far 
from  an  easy  act  of  faith  in  God's  goodness,  that  the  ideal 
which  has  dawned  upon  him  is  felt  to  be  the  ideal  of  a  hopeless 
good.  He  finds  "  a  law  in  his  members  warring  against  the 
law  of  his  mind,  and  bringing  him  into  captivity  to  the  law  of 
sin  that  is  in  his  members ;  " — so  that  he  cries  out, — "  O 
wretched  man  that  I  am  !  who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body 
of  this  death  ?  " 

Now,  we  know  that  where,  in  such  cases,  all  general  urging 
of  God's  mercy  and  clemency,  and  willingness  to  pardon  and  to 
save,  fail  to  give  peace,  or  quicken  hope ;  the  presenting  of  the 
atonement  for  the  acceptance  of  faith  does  both.  Awakened 
sinners  (and  I  use  the  expression  simply  as  to  my  own  mind 
the  most  accurate,  while  also  it  is  the  echo  of  the  word"  Awake, 
thou  that  sleepest,")  who  are  finding  themselves  unable  to 
believe  that  God, — not  because  He  is  not  merciful  and  gracious, 
and  however  merciful  and  gracious  He  is, — can  pardon  their 
sins  and  bestow  on  them  eternal  life,  are  found  able  to  believe 


V 


20  THE  ENDS  CONTEMPLATED 

in  such  pardon,  and  to  receive  the  hope  of  eternal  life,  when 
these  are  presented  to  them  in  connexion  with  the  sacrifice  of 
Himself  by  which  Christ  put  away  sin,  becoming  the  propitia- 
tion for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world. 

This  fact  is  surely  deserving  of  the  serious  consideration  of 
those  whose  objection  to  the  atonement  is,  that  it  should  be 
enough  for  man's  peace  and  hope  to  be  told,  that  the  Lord 
God  is  merciful  and  gracious  and  ready  to  forgive,  and  to 
relieve  all  who  call  upon  Him.  Here  there  is  manifested  an 
inability  to  believe  in  God's  forgiveness  as  meeting  man's  need, 
when  presented  simply  as  clemency  and  mercy: — but,  presented 
in  the  form  of  the  atonement,  it  is  believed  in.  Not  surely 
because  less  credit  lor  iWe  ana  mercy  is  given  to  God  now ; 
for  on  the  contrary  the  conception  of  love  simply  forgiving,  and 
of  love  forgiving  at  such  a  cost  to  itself,  differ  just  in  this,  that 
in  the  latter,  the  love  is  infinitely  enhanced. 

An  objector  may  reply  that  doubtless  this  is  a  remarkable 
mental  phenomenon,  and  that  he  does  not  deny  that  what  are 
called  religious  memoirs  abound  in  illustrations  of  it ;  but  that 
he  cannot  assume  that  those  who  have  had  this  history  were  in 
the  light,  and  that  he  himself  is  in  the  dark  ; — and  that  to  his 
mind,  to  preach  forgiveness,  and  the  gift  of  eternal  life,  in  con- 
nexion with  an  atonement,  is  only  to  increase  the  difficulty  of 
faith, — for  that,  while  he  sees  in  both  these,  contemplated 
simply  in  themselves,  what  he  receives  as  worthy  of  the  good- 
ness of  God,  the  addition  of  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement 
introduces  other,  and  to  him,  mysterious  elements  into  the 
question,  complicating  what  should  be  a  simple  matter,  and,  in 
fact,  representing  the  love  of  God  as  not  at  liberty  freely  to 
express  itself,  but,  having  difficulties  and  hindrances  to  en- 
counter,— the  removal  and  overcoming  of  which  involved  such 
mysteries  as  the  incarnation,  and  the  self-sacrifice  of  the  Son  of 
God. 

It  is  even  so  :  and,  this,  doubtless,  is  the  difficulty, — the 
great  and  ultimate  difficulty ;  and  let  its  amount  be  distinctly 
recognised.     That  God  should  do  anything  that  is  loving  and 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT.  21 

gracious — which  implies  only  an  act  of  will  putting  forth  power 
guided  by  wisdom,  this  seems  easy  of  faith.  But,  either  that 
any  object  should  appear  desirable  to  God's  love,  which  infinite 
power,  guided  by  infinite  wisdom,  cannot  accomplish  by  a 
simple  act  of  the  divine  will,  or  that,  if  there  be  an  object  not 
to  be  thus  attained,  God  will  proceed  to  seek  that  object  by  a 
process  which  implies  a  great  cost  to  God,  and  self-sacrifice, — 
either  of  these  positions  is  difficult  of  faith.  But  the  doctrine 
of  the  atonement  involves  them  both  :  and  this  we  must  realise, 
and  bear  in  mind,  if  we  would  deal  wisely,  nay,  justly,  with 
objectors. 

Yet,  doubtless,  the  ejements  in  the  atonement  which  cause 
difficulty  are  the  very  elements  which  give  it  its  power  to  be 
that  peace  and  hope  for  man  which  the  gospel  contemplates, 
and  which  a  simple  intimation  of  the  divine  clemency  and 
goodness  could  not  quicken  in  him.  It  is  that  God  is  contem- 
plated as  manifesting  clemency  and  goodness  at  a  great  cost, 
and  not  by  a  simple  act  of  will  that  costs  nothing,  that  gives 
the  atonement  its  great  power  over  the  heart  of  man.  For 
that  is  a  deep,  yea,  the  deepest  spiritual  instinct  in  man  which 
affirms,  that  in  proportion  as  any  act  manifests  love  it  is  to  be 
believed  as  ascribed  to  God  who  is  love.  No  manifestation  of 
power  meeting  me  can  so  assure  me  that  I  am  meeting  God  as 
the  manifestation  of  love  does.  Therefore  they  greatly  err  who 
seek  an  external  evidence  of  power,  instead  of  an  internal 
evidence  of  love,  in  considering  the  claim  of  anything  to  be 
received  as  from  God. 

Accordingly,  a  high  argument  in  favour  of  Christianity,  and 
which  has  awakened  a  deep  response  in  many  a  heart,  has  been 
founded  upon  this  very  aspect  of  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement, 
viz.,  that  it  represents  God  as  manifesting  self-sacrificing  love; 
and  so  reveals  the  depth,  not  to  say  the  reality,  of  love,  as  crea- 
tion and  providence  could  not  do.  And  as  a  final  cause  for 
the  permission  of  a  condition  of  things,  giving  opportunity  to 
the  divine  love  to  show  the  self-sacrificing  nature  of  love,  and 
to  bless  with  the  blessedness  of  being  the  objects  of  such  love, 

E 


22  THE  ENDS  CONTEMPLATED 

and,  as  the  fruit  of  this,  the  blessedness  of  so  loving — in  this 
view  this  argument  is  both  true  and  deep. 

But  the  internal  evidence  which  at  the  point  at  which  we 
stand  in  our  inquiry  we  need,  must  be  something  different 
from  this.  The  evil  condition  to  which  sin  had  reduced  man, 
the  good  of  which  nevertheless  man  still  continued  capable  j 
these  ideas  in  relation  to  man  being  conceived  of  as  together 
present  to  the  divine  mind,  it  appeared  to  us  that  we  could 
believe,  that  the  desire  would  arise  in  the  heart  of  the  Father 
of  the  spirits  of  all  flesh  to  bridge  over  this  gulf  if  that  could  be  : 
nay,  it  seemed  impossible  to  believe  that  that  desire  should  not 
arise.  Now  the  gospel  declares,  that  the  love  of  God  has,  not 
only  desired  to  bridge  over  this  gulf,  but  has  actually  bridged  it 
over,  and  the  atonement  is  presented  to  us  as  that  in  wlncTTflns 
is  accomplished.  What  we  seek  is  internal  evidence — a  response 
in  our  own  spirits,  as  to  the  divine  wisdom  manifested  in  what 
is  thus  represented  as  the  means  by  which  divine  love  attains 
the  object  of  its  desire. 

But  in  this  view  it  is  not  enough  to  say  that  this  way  is  that 
in  which  the  greatest  proof  of  love  is  afforded.  Love  cannot 
be  conceived  of  as  doing  anything  gratuitously,  merely  to  show 
its  own  depth,  for  which  thing  there  was  no  call  in  the  circum- 
stances  of  the  case  viewed  in  themselves.  A  man  may  love 
another  so  as  to  be  willing  to  die  for  him  j — Eut  he  will  not 
actually  lay  down  his  life  merely  to  show  hjs^love,  and  without 
there  being  anything  to  render  his  doing  so  necessary  in  order 
to  save  the  life  for  which  he  yields  up  his  own. 

Therefore  the  question  remains,  "  How  was  so  costly  an 
expression  of  love  as  the  atonement  necessary?" — and  how 
costly  this  expression  of  divine  love  has  been  to  God  we  must 
fully  recognise.  For  there  is  no  doubt  that  a  chief  source  of 
the  difficulty  which  is  felt  in  receiving  the  doctrine  of  the  atone- 
ment is,  that  the  atonement  presupposes  the  incarnation.  "  God 
commendeth  His  love  toward  us,  in  that,  while  we  were  yet 
sinners  Christ  died  for  us."  A  man  who  is  contented  to  die  for 
another  manifests  his  love  at  the  greatest  cost  to  himself.     By 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT.  23 

such  an  illustration,  therefore,  the  apostle  teaches  that  the  love 
that  is  manifested  in  Christ's  dying  for  us  is  manifested  at  a 
great  cost  to  God.  Of  course  this  assumes  that  Christ  is  God. 
That  God  should  sacrifice  one  creature  for  another, — subject 
one  of  His  offspring  to  death  that  others  of  His  offspring  might 
live, — would  have  nothing  in  it  parallel  to  a  man's  laying  down 
his  own  life  for  another.  To  say  that  Christ  was  not  after  all 
sacrificed  in  this  transaction ; — that  what  He  endured  was  on 
His  part  voluntary,  and  endured  in  the  contemplation  of  a 
reward, — for  that,  "  for  the  joy  set  before  Him  He  endured 
the  cross,  despising  the  shame,"  is  no  answer  :  for  that  God 
takes  credit  to  Himself  for  the  love  that  Christ  manifests  in 
dying  for  us — this  is  the  point  of  the  apostle's  argument.  As  to 
the  reward  set  before  Christ,  it  is  that  fruit  of  His  self-sacrifice 
which  must  be  presupposed  in  order  that  the  self-sacrifice 
should  be  a  reasonable  transaction.  Self-sacrificing  love  does 
not  sacrifice  itself  but  for  an  end  of  gain  to  its  object;  other- 
wise it  would  be  folly.  Does  its  esteeming  as  a  reward  that 
gain  to  those  for  whom  it  suffers,  destroy  its  claim  to  being 
self-sacrifice?  Nay,  that  which  seals  its  character  as  self- 
sacrificing  love  is,  that  this  to  it  is  a  satisfying  reward.  "  He 
shall  see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul,  and  be  satisfied." 

In  considering  why  our  redemption  has  been  at  such  a  cost, 
and  the  whole  subject  of  the  nature  of  the  atonement,  we 
shall  be  greatly  helped  by  keeping  distinctly  before  our  minds, 
these  two  extreme  points  to  which  the  atonement  is  related 
in  that  it  refers  to  the  one  retrospectively,  to  the  other 
prospectively,  viz.,  the  condition  in  which  the  grace  of  God 
finds  us,  and  the  condition  to  which  it  raises  us. 

Christ  has  "  redeemed  us  who  were  under  the  law,  that  we 
might  receive  the  adoption  of  sons  " — Christ  "  suffered  for  us, 
the  just  for  the  unjust,  that  He  might  bring  us  to  God."  Both 
that  we  were  "under  the  law"  and  "unjust"  and  that  we 
were  "  to  receive  the  adoption  of  sons  "  and  to  be  "  brought  to 
God"  may  be  expected  to  have  affected  the  nature  of  the 
atonement    as    determining    what  it   must   be    adequate    to : 


24 


THE  ENDS  CONTEMPLATED 


more  especially  the  latter,  as  the  great  result  contemplated. 
Accordingly,  in  the  writings  of  the  apostles,  we  find  the 
necessity  for  the  atonement  being  what  it  was,  connected  with 
both — but  more  especially  with  the  latter. 

Yet  in  our  systems  of  theology  the  former,  and  not  the 
latter,  has  been  chiefly  the  foundation  of  the  arguments  em- 
ployed. Not  that  the  latter  has  not  also  been  taken  into 
account,  and  provision  made  for  it ;  but  it  has  not  been 
regarded  as  shedding  light  on  the  nature  of  the  atonement. 
This  is  certain.  For  however  our  "  receiving  the  adoption  of 
sqns "  and  our  being  " brought  to  God "  enter  into  the^sdieme 
of  salvation  as  represented  in  these  systems,  it  is  in  the  fact 
that  we  "  were  under  the  law  "  and  "  unjust  "  —  that  is  to 
say,  that  we  were  sinners,  under  the  condemnation  of  a  broken 
law,  that  the  necessity  for  the  atonement  has  been  recognised. 

The  important  consequences  that  have  followed  from  this, 
as  seems  to  me,  departure  from  the  example  of  the  apostles, 
will  appear  as  we  proceed.  But  with  the  conclusions  arrived 
at  as  to  the  necessity  for  an  atonement,  as  arising  from  the 
fact,  that  we,  whom  the  grace  of  God  has  visited,  were  sinners 
under  the  condemnation  of  a  broken  law,  I  fully  accord.  I 
believe  that  "  by  the  deeds  of  the  law  could  no  flesh  living  be 
justified  " — understanding  by  the  law,  not  the  Mosaic  ritual, 
but  that  law  of  which  the  apostle  speaks  when  he  says,  "I 
delight  in  the  law  of  God  after  the  inward  man  " — that  is  to 
say,  the  law,  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thine 
heart  and  mind  and  soul  and  strength,  and  thy  neighbour  as 
thyself."  I  believe  that  no  modification  of  the  law  as  a  law, 
in  accommodation  to  man's  condition  as  a  sinner,  is  conceiv- 
able  that  could  either  give  the  assurance  of  the  pardon  of 
sin,  or  quicken  us  with  a  new  life  j  and  that  all  idea  of  bridging 
over,  by  a  modified  law,  the  gulf  which  we  have  been  con- 
templating is  untenable.  I  believe  that,  if  this  was  to  be 
accomplished,  it  could  only  be  by  some  moral  and  spiritual 
constitution  quite  other  than  the  law  ;  while,  at  the  same  time, 
such  other  constitution  cannot  be  conceived  of  as  introduced 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT.  25 

in  any  way  that  does  not  duly  honour  the  law ;  or  that  delivers 
from  the  consequences  of  transgressing  it,  without  vindicating 
the  righteousness  of  the  law,  and  the  consistency  of  the  law- 
giver. Finally,  I  believe  that  this  requirement  is  recognised 
in  the  gospel,  being  fully  met  in  the  atonement. 

But  I  must  guard  against  seeming  to  give  to  the  reasonings 
by  which  these  conclusions  have  been  arrived  at,  an  unquali- 
fied assent.  When  it  is  argued  that  the  justice  or  righteousness 
of  God  and  His  holiness,  and  also  His  truth  and  faithfulness, 
presented  difficulties  in  the  way  of  our  salvation,  which 
rendered  for  their  removal  an  atonement  necessary,  I  fully 
assent  to  this  ; — and,  when  it  is  added,  as  I  have  seen  it  lately 
urged,  that  the  goodness,  the  love  of  God  as  the  moral  ruler 
and  governor  of  the  universe,  also  demanded  an  atonement, 
that  our  salvation  might  be  consistent  with  the  well-being  of 
the  moral  universe, — I  can  freely  concede  this  also  : — nay, 
more,  I  would  say,  not  the  love  of  God  having  respect  to  the 
interests  of  the  moral  universe  only,  but  the  love  of  God 
having  respect  to  the  interests  of  the  subjects  of  the  salvation 
themselves.  For  indeed  to  me  salvation  otherwise  than  through 
the  atonement  is  a  contradiction. 

.  But  while  in  reference  to  the  not  uncommon  way  of  regard- 
ing this  subject  which  represents  righteousness  and  holiness 
as  opposed  to  the  sinner's  salvation,  and  mercy  and  love  as 
on  his  side,  I  freely  concede  that  all  the  divine  attributes 
were,  in  one  view,  against  the  sinner  in  that  they  called  for 
the  due  expression  of  God's  wrath  against  sin  in  the  history 
of  redemption ;  I  believe,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  justice, 
the  righteousness,  the  holiness  of  God  have  an  aspect  accord- 
ing to  which  they,  as  well  as  His  mercy,  appear  as  intercessors 
for  man,  and  crave  his  salvation.  Justice  may  be  contemplated 
as  according  to  sin  its  due ;  and  there  is  in  righteousness,  as  we 
are  conscious  to  it,  what  testifies  that  sin  should  be  miserable. 
But  justice  looking  at  the  sinner,  not  simply  as  the  fit  subject 
of  punishment,  but  as  existing  in  a  moral  condition  of  unright- 
eousness, and  so  its  own  opposite,  must  desire  that  the  sinner 


0 


26 


THE  ENDS  CONTEMPLATED 


t 


should  cease   to   be  in  that    condition ;    should  cease  to   be 
unrighteous, — should  become  righteous  :  righteousness  in  God 
craving   for  righteousness  in  man,  with   a   craving  which  the 
realisation  of  righteousness  in  man  alone  can  satisfy.     So  also 
of  holiness.      In  one   view  it  repels   the  sinner,    and  would 
banish  him  to  outer  darkness,  because  of  its  repugnance  to  sin. 
In  another  it  is  pained  by  the  continued  existence  of  sin  and 
unholiness,  and  must  desire  that  the  sinner  should  cease  to  be 
sinful.     So  that  the  sinner,  conceived  of  as  awakening  to  the 
consciousness  of  his  own  evil  state,   and   saying  to   himself, 
"  By  sin  I  have  destroyed  myself.     Is  there  yet  hope  for  me 
in  God  ?"  should  hear  an  encouraging  answer,  not  only  from 
the  love  and  mercy  of  God,  but_  also  from  His  vervjighteous- 
ness  and  holiness.      We  must   not  forget,  in  considering  the 
response  that  is  in  conscience  to  the  charge  of  sin  and  guilt, 
that,   though  the  fears    which   accompany   that   response   are 
partly  the  effect  of  a  dawning  of  light,  they  also  in  part  arise 
from  remaining  darkness.      He  who  is  able  to  interpret  the 
voice  of  God  within  him  truly,  and  with  full  spiritual  intelli- 
gence, will  be  found  saying,  not  only,  "  There  is  to  me  cause 
for  fear  in  the  righteousness  and  holiness  of  God  " — but  also, 
"  There  is  room  for  hope  for  me  in  the  divine  righteousness 
and    holiness."      And    when    gathering    consolation   from  the 
meditation  of  the  name  of  the  Lord,  that  consolation  will  be 
not  only,   "Surely  the  divine  mercy  desires  to  see  me  happy 
rather  than  miserable  "  —  but  also,  "  Surely  the  divine  right- 
eousness  desires   to    see   me   righteous — the   divine    holiness 
desires  to  see  me  holy — my  continuing  unrighteous  and  unholy 
is   as   grieving   to    God's    righteousness   and   holiness   as   my 
misery  through  sin  is  to   His  pity  and   love."      "  Good  and 
righteous  is  the  Lord  ;    therefore  will    He    teach  sinners  the 
way  which  they  should  choose."     "  AjusJ:_God  .and  a  Saviour," 
not  as  the  harmony  of  a  seeming  opposition,  but  "a  Saviour," 
because  "  a  just  God." 

If  this  thought  commends  itself  to  my  reader's  mind  as  it 
does  to  mine,  he  will  feel  it  to  be  important ;  and  he  will  see, 


-   IN  THE  ATONEMENT.  27 

in  reference  to  the  atonement,  not  that  it  tends  to  make  an 
atonement  appear  less  necessary,  but  that  it  may  greatly  affect 
the  nature  of  the  atonement  required  :  for  it  implies  that  the 
prospective  aspect  of  the  atonement, — its  reference  to  the  life 
of  sonship  given  to  us  in  Christ,  has  been  its  most  important 
aspect  as  respects  the  demands  of  righteousness  and  holiness, 
as  it  confessedly  is  as  respects  those  of  mercy  and  love.  This 
is  so — while,  assuredly,  it  is  also  true  that  the  retrospective 
aspect  of  the  atonement  as  connecting  the  pardon  of  sin  with 
the  vindicating  of  the  honour  of  the  divine  law,  is  not  less  a 
meeting  of  a  demand  of  divine  love  than  of  the  demands  of 
righteousness  and  holiness.  How  could  it  be  otherwise,  seeing 
that  the  law  is  love  ? 


28 


CHAPTER  II. 

TEACHING     OF     LUTHER. 

T*HE  evil  of  the  condition  in  respect  of  which  we  needed 
salvation,  and  the  excellence  of  the  salvation  given  to  us  in 
Christ ;  and  the  reality  and  exceeding  greatness  of  the  difficul- 
ties which  stood  in  the  way  of  our  salvation,  and  which  the 
Saviour  had  to  encounter  in  accomplishing  our  redemption, 
have  perhaps  never  been  more  vividly  realised  than  by  the 
great  reformer  Luther.  And,  though  hejioes  not  afford  much 
help  to  one  seeking  a  clear  intellectual  apprehension  of  the 
nature  and  essence  of  the  atonement,  or  of  that  might  by 
which  Christ  prevailed  :  yet  that  his  spiritual  insight  into  these 
things  has  been  great,  is  implied  in  the  depth  of  his  under- 
standing of  justification  by  faith,  and  of  the  relation  in  which 
peace  in  believing  stands  to  that  which  our  Lord  asserted 
concerning  Himself  when  He  said,  "  He  that  hath  seen  Me 
hath  seen  the  Father."  I  believe  it  will  be  of  much  advantage 
to  us  subsequently  to  occupy  a  little  space  here  with  the  con- 
sideration of  his  teaching  in  relation  to  the  atonement,  and 
what  it  has  accomplished. 

I  have  referred  more  than  may  meet  the  indulgence  of  some 
readers,  though  less  than  my  own  feeling  of  its  value  as  a 
source  of  light  would  have  inclined  me  to  do,  to  the  experi- 
ence  of  deeply  awakened  sinners.  The  great  reformer  was 
such  an  one  :  and  this  part  of  his  history  has  impressed  a 
special  character  on  his  teaching  more  than  anything  else  that 
went  to  make  him  what  he  was.     To  any  who  read  his  words, 


TEACHING    OF  LUTHER.  29 

not  as  extravagance  and  fanaticism,  but, — as  I  believe  they  are 
entitled  to  be  read, — words  of  truth  and  soberness,  his  com- 
mendation of  his  great  doctrine  of  "  Justification  by  faith 
alone  "  from  his  own  experience  of  its  preciousness,  is  deeply 
interesting,  and,  I  may  say,  most  affecting.  For,  when  Luther 
speaks  of  the  law  and  the  Gospel, — of  the  righteousness  of 
faith,  it  is  not  as  a  speculative  theologian,  reasoning  out  princi- 
ples to  their  conclusions,  and  arranging  the  parts  of  a  system 
in  their  due  relations.  He  speaks  of  the  law  as  what  wrought 
with  his  spirit  until  it  had  brought  him  to  the  brink  of  despair. 
He  speaks  of  the  gospel  as  what  had  spoken  peace  and  life 
to  him,  and,  by  its  revelation  of  Christ  to  his  faith,  had  raised 
him  as  from  hell  to  heaven.  Seeking  to  be  justified  by  works 
is  to  him  no  mere  theological  error,  as  to  which  he  can  con- 
clusively reason.  The  very  thought  of  it  moves  him  to  the 
depths  of  his  being ;  renewing  to  him,  with  all  its  horrors,  the 
past  in  which  he  had  himself  so  sought  justification,  and  stirring 
him  to  a  vehement  indignation  against  those  who  direct  men's 
steps  into  that  path  of  death.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
righteousness  of  faith  seems  to  be  to  him  that  of  which  he 
cannot  speak  without  the  renewed  sense  of  his  first  peace 
and  joy  in  believing,  and  of  the  excellent  glory  of  that  "new  * 
world "  into  which  "  faith  mounts  up,  where  is  no  law,  no 
sin,  no  remorse  or  sting  of  conscience,  no  death,  but  perfect 
joy,  righteousness,  grace,  peace,  life,  salvation,  glory."  (p.  84.) 
The  law  and  the  gospel  in  their  relation  to  the  human  spirit, 
are  to  Luther  as  two  spiritual  regions  which  his  spirit  knows, 
having  trembled  and  agonised  in  the  one,  and  rejoiced  and 
triumphed  in  the  other ; — but  the  former  of  which  has  no 
claim  upon  his  presence  in  it,  and  ought  to  be  to  him  as  if  it 
were  not ;  being,  indeed,  done  away  by  Christ,  and  having  no 
existence  nowr  but  through  unbelief;  while  in  the  latter  it  is 
the  will  of  God  that  he  should  dwell  by  faith  ;  to  do  which  is 
to  give  God  glory  and  be  righteous  in  His  sight.  The  vivid- 
ness and  picturing  form  of  his  speech  is  quite  startling  :  yet 
is  it  in  no  sense  figurative  or  rhetorical  j  for  he  is  manifestly 


^    J  ,  fo.C'.r  *jj~k^~^ 


30  TEACHING  OF  LUTHER. 

keeping  as  close  to  the  simple  expression  of  his  mental  and 
spiritual  perceptions  as  he  can.  Reading  his  pleadings  against 
the  law,  and  for  the  gospel,  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel  that  he 
who  gave  such  a  fundamental  place  to  justification  by  faith,  was 
himself  the  preacher  of  it  in  an  altogether  distinctive  and  pre- 
eminent sense. 

I  shall  endeavour  briefly  to  express  the  conception  of  Luther's 
mind  on  the  subject  of  the  atonement  which  I  have  received 
from  a  careful  study  of  his  full  commentary  on  the  Epistle  of  the 
Apostle  Paul  to  the  Galatians. 

This  epistle  has  had  a  special  interest  to  Luther,  because  he 
recognised  Paul's  controversy  with  the  Judaising  teachers,  by 
whom  the  Galatian  converts  to  Christianity  had  been  seduced, 
as  substantially  the  same  with  that  in  which  he  himself  was 
engaged  with  the  church  of  Rome  ;  and,  as  is  common  to  him 
with  the  other  Reformers,  his  arguing  on  the  subject  of  the 
atonement  has  a  special  character  impressed  upon  it,  by  the 
relation  to  certain  errors  in  the  church  of  Rome  in  which  he 
was  contemplating  it.  Luther  had  not  to  contend  with  persons 
denying  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement  :  what  he  had  to  contend 
against  was  human  additions  to  the  provision  for  peace  of  con- 
science and  hope  towards  God,  revealed  in  the  gospel;  and 
what  we  learn  of  his  mind  on  the  subject  of  the  atonement  is 
what  he  is  led  to  utter  in  pleading  for  justification  by  faith 
alone. 

I  have  said  that  no  man  ever  more  realised  than  Luther  did 
that  there  were  actual  difficulties  in  the  nature  of  things  to  be 
dealt  with  in  accomplishing  our  redemption, — difficulties  which 
a  simple  act  of  the  divine  will  could  not  do  away  with  ;  but 
which  have  been  successfully  and  triumphantly  dealt  with  in  the 
atonement  for  the  sins  of  men,  made  by  the  Son  of  God.  His 
deep  feeling  of  the  dishonour  done  to  Christ  by  combining  any 
other  element  with  our  vision  of  Him  by  faith,  in  our  peace  and 
confidence  towards  God,  may  have,  in  part,  moved  him  to  the 
use  of  the  strong  language  which  he  employs,  both  in  setting 
forth  what  Christ  had  to  accomplish,  and  how  He  has  accom- 


TEACHING  OF  LUTHER.  3 1 

plished  it.  But  it  is  manifest  that  he  could  not  speak  of  these 
subjects  without  feeling  it  difficult  to  find  language  strong  enough 
for  his  convictions.  And  the  law,  and  sin,  and  death,  and  the 
devil  who  had  the  power  of  death,  are  set  before  us  as  awful 
realities  against  man ;  and  as  to  be  encountered  and  overcome 
by  Him  who  had  undertaken  to  save  man  ;  and  Christ's  jvictory 
over  them  is  seen  in  Luther's  words,  not  as  a  simple  act  of 
divine,  resistless  power,  but  as  a  moral  and  spiritual  victory, — 
the  triumph  of  good  as  good  over  evil  as  evil,  of  righteousness 
and  life  over  sin  and  death;  bringing  with  it  all  secondary 
external  results  in  its  train. 

Not  that  on  these  difficult  and  mysterious  subjects,  he  does 
not, — as  well  as  those  who  do  not  give  the  same  impression  of 
having  approached  them  nearly, — leave  us  disposed  to  ask 
many  questions.  He,  as  well  as  others,  speaks  of  our  sins  as 
laid  upon  Christ,  without  helping  us  to  understand  what  this 
means  ; — while  he  is  distinguished  from  others  by  the  anxiety 
he  shows  to  select  the  strongest  words  to  express  the  identifica- 
tion of  Christ  with  our  sins  :  Refusing  (p.  300)  to  understand 
"  was  made  sin  for  us,"  in  2  Cor.  v.  21,  as  meaning  a  sacrifice 
for  sin  (while  he  admits  that  the  word  used  will  bear  that  mean- 
ing), choosing  rather  to  insist  that  He  was  made  sin  for  us  in 
some  more  absolute  way  of  identifying  Himself  with  us  and  our 
sin,  in  order  that  we,  with  whose  sin  He  had  so  identified  Him- 
self, might  be  identified  with  Him  in  respect  of  His  righteous- 
ness ;  and  that  sm  and  righteousness  meeting  in  Him^  and 
righteousness  triumphing  over"  sm,  we  might  partake  in  the 
triumph  and  all  its  fruits. — "  Because  in  the  self-same  person 
which  is  the  highest,  the  greatest  and  the  only  sinner,  there  is 
also  an  everlasting  and  invincible  righteousness  ;  therefore  these 
two  do  encounter  together  the  highest,  the  greatest  and  the 
only  sin,  and  the  highest,  the  greatest  and  the  only  righteous- 
ness. Here  one  of  them  must  needs  be  overcome  and  give 
place  to  the  other  .  .  .  righteousness  is  everlasting,  immor- 
tal, invincible  .  .  .  therefore  in  this  contest  sin  must  needs  I 
be  vanquished  and  killed,  and  righteousness  must   overcome'      i/^ 


32  TEACHING  OF  LUTHER. 

kand   reign.     So   in  Christ  all   sin  is   vanquished,  killed   and 

II  buried,  and  righteousness  remaineth  a  conqueror  and  reigneth 

1  for  ever."     (pp.  294,  295.)     This_  conception  of  Christ  as  the 

one  man,  having  present  together  in  Himself  the  sin  of  all  other 

men,    and  His  own  righteousness,   Luther  endeavours  in  all 

f\l  possible  forms  of  speech  to  present  as  an  actual  fact,  and^as 

\  what  justifies,  and  underlies  such  statements  as  that,  "  the  Lord 

*      laid  on  Him  the  iniquity  of  us  all,"  and  that,  "  He  bore  our  sins 

in  His  own   body  on  the  tree."     And,  whatever  difficulties 

the  matter  may  have  presented  to  Luther's  own  mind,  or  what- 

(ever  difficulties  his  words  may  cause  to  us,  attempting  to  attach 
to  them  a  definite  and  consistent  meaning,  he  leaves  no  room 
a  to  doubt  that  what  he  sought  to  set  forth  he  conceived  of  as  a 

[I  reality,  and  not  as  a  legal  fiction.  For  he  thus  illustrates  the 
identifying  ot  Christ  with  men, — "  For  when  a  sinner  cometh  to 
the  knowledge  of  himself  indeed,  he  feeleth  not  only  that  he  is 
^niserable,  but  misery  itself;  not  only  that  he  is  a  sinner,  and  is 

^accursed,  but  even  sin  and  malediction  itself.  For  it  is  a  terrible 
thing  to  bear  sin,  the  wrath  of  God,  malediction  and  death. 
Wherefore,  that  man  which  hath  a  true  feeling  of  these  things  as 
Christ  did  truly  and  effectually  feel  them  for  all  mankind,  is  made 
even  sin,  death,  malediction."  (p.  300.)  But  to  think  of  Luther 
as  really  having  any  unworthy  conceptions  of  Christ  would  be 
altogether  erroneous.  It  was,  doubtless,  because  of  his  great 
realisation  of  the  divine  and  perfect  righteousness  which  were 
in  Christ,  and  which  in  the  deepest,  and  doubtless,  he  must  have 
felt  only  absolute  sense  were  alofte  His,  that  he  was  able  to  use 
that  which  he  thus  calls  "  an  apostolic  liberty  of  speech  "  in 
setting  forth  the  reality  of  His  bearing  our  sins. 

Such  is  Luther's  teaching  as  to  the  retrospective  aspect  of  the 
atonement.  His  teaching  as  to  its  prospective  bearing, — the 
positive  fruits  of  benefit  to  us  through  Christ's  victory,  the  gift 
of  eternal  life  itself, — is  the  following  out  of  that  root  conception 
of  Christ's  identifying  of  Himself  with  us.  In  virtue  of  this 
identification,  the  freedom  and  righteousness  and  life  which  are 

I    in  Christ,  being  His  own  proper  endowments,  and  of  which  His 


TEACHING  OF  LUTHER.  33 

coming  under  our  sins  did  not  despoil  Him,  but  which  proved 
themselves  mightier  than  all  that  power  of  darkness, — coming 
forth  triumphant  from  the  conflict, — these  are  all  ours.  As  ours 
we  are  called  to  recognise  them.  As  endowed  with  them,  we 
are  called  to  conceive  of  ourselves.  As  the  provisions  of  the 
salvation  granted  to  us  we  are  to  use  them.  As  the  elements 
of  our  new  divine  life  we  are  to  live  in  them  and  by  them. 
They  are  all  ours  as  Christ  is  ours, — "  He  is  made  of  God  unto 
us  wisdom  and  righteousness  and  sanctification  and  redemp- 
tion." Christ  our  life  is  presented  to  our  faith,  that  believing 
in  Him  we  may  live, — yet  not  we,  but  Christ  in  us.  Faith  does 
not  make  these  high  endowments,  the  elements  of  the  gift  of  \vj     J 

Christ  ours.:  they  are  ours  by  the  gift  of  God.  Faith  appre- 
hends them,  accepts  them, — gives  God  glory  in  accepting  them ; 
and  thus  faithjaves  by  bringing  us  into  living  harmony  with  the 
divine  constitution  of  things  in  Christ ; — and,  come  into  this 
harmony,  God  pronounces  us  righteous, — and  abiding  in  this 
faith,  light  and  life,  and  joy  in  God  abound  in  us,  and  the  end 
of  God  in  Christ  is  being  fulfilled  in  us ; — partially  now  and 
here, — to  be  completely  so  hereafter. 

I  do  not  feel  that  I  can  more  pointedly  express  Luther's 
conception  of  faith  than  in  saying,  that  it  lifts  us  into  Christ  and 
makes  us  one  with  Him,  both  in  our  own  consciousness,  and  in 
God's  judgment  of  us  ; — as  we  were,  before  faith,  one  with  F[  jp 
in  God's  gracious  desire  and  purpose. 

Luther's  conception  of  how  God  is  justified  in  "  justifying  the 
ungodly  who  believe,"  we  may  learn  from  what  he  says,  first  of 
Faith's  own  nature  ;  and  then  of  the  results  of  the  living  relation 
to  Christ  into  which  it  brings  us. 

First,  of  Faith's  own  nature  he  says,  "  Paul,  by  these  words, 
*  Abraham  believed,'  of  faith  in  God  maketh  the  chiefest  son- 
ship,  the  chiefest  duty,  the  chiefest  obedience,  and  the  chiefest 
sacrifice.  Let  him  that  is  a  rhetorician  amplify  this  place,  and 
he  shall  see  that  faith  is  an  almighty  thing ;  and  that  the  power 
thereof  is  infinite  and  inestimable ;  for  it  giveth  glory  unto  God, 
which  is  the  highest  service  that  can  be  given  unto  Him.    Now 


34 


TEACHING  OF  LUTHER. 


i^' 


«*• 


>•■•- 


r 


to  give  glory  unto  God  is  to  believe  in  Him,  to  count  Him  true, 
wise,  righteous,  merciful,  almighty ;  briefly,  to  acknowledge 
Him  to  be  the  author  and  giver  of  all  goodness.  This  reason 
doth  not,  but  faith.  That  is  it  which  maketh  us  divine  people, 
and,  as  a  man  would  say,  it  is  the  Creator  of  (a)  certain  divinity, 
not  in  the  substance  of  God,  but  in  us.  For  without  faitrT  God 
loseth  in  us  His  glory,  wisdom,  righteousness,  truth,  and 
mercy.  To  conclude  :  no  majesty  or  divinity  remaineth  unto 
God,  where  faith  is  not.  And  the  chiefest  thing  that  God 
requireth  of  man  is  that  he  give  unto  Him  His  glory  and  His 
divinity ;  that  is  to  say,  that  he  taketh  Him  not  for  an  idol,  but 
for  God,  who  regardeth  him,  heareth  him,  showeth  mercy  unto 
him,  and  helpeth  him.  This  being  done,  God  hath  His  full  and 
perfect  divinity,  that  is,  He  hath  whatsoever  a  faithful  heart  can 
attribute  unto  Him.  To  be  able,  therefore,  to  give  that  glory 
unto  God  it  is  the  wisdom  of  wisdoms,  the  righteousness  of 
righteousness,  the  religion  of  religions,  and  sacrifice  of  sacrifices. 
Hereby  we  may  perceive  what  an  high  and  excellent  righteous- 
ness faith  is,  and  so,  by  the  contrary,  what  an  horrible  and 
grievous  sin  infidelity  is.  Whosoever  then  believeth  God,  as 
Abraham  did,  is  righteous  before  God,  because  he  hath  faith, 
which  giveth  glory  unto  God  ;  that  is,  he  giveth  God  that  which 
is  due  to  Him."     (pp.  250,  251.) 

But,  secondly,  because  this  excellent  condition  of  faith  is  in 
us  but  as  a  germ — a  grain  of  mustard-seed  —  a  feeble  dawn, 
God,  in  imputing  it  as  righteousness,  has  respect  unto  that  of 
which  it  is  the  dawn — of  which,  as  the  beginning  of  the  life  of 
Christ  in  us,  it  is  the  promise,  and  in  which  it  shall  issue,  even 
the  noontide  brightness  of  that  day  in  which  the  righteous  shall 
shine  as  the  stars  in  the  kingdom  of  their  Father.  So  he  adds 
in  reference  to  the  words  "  it  was  imputed  to  him  for  righteous- 
ness,"— "  For  Christian  righteousness  consisteth  in  two  things, 
that  is  to  say,  in  faith  in  the  heart,  and  in  God's  imputation. 
Faith  is  indeedaformal  righteousness,  and  yet  this  righteous- 
ness is  not  enough;  for  after  faith  there  remain  yet  certain 
remnants  of  sin  in  our  flesh.     This  sacrifice  of  faith  began  in 


TEACHING  OF  LUTHER.  35 

Abraham,  but  at  last  it  was  finished  in  death.  Wherefore,  the 
other  part  of  righteousness  must  needs  be  added  also,  to  finish 
the  same  in  us,  that  is  to  say,  God's  imputation.  For  faith 
giveth  not  enough  to  God,  being  imperfect ;  yea  our  faith  is  but 
a  little  spark  of  faith,  which  beginneth  only  to  render  unto  God 
His  true  divinity.  We  have  received  the  firstfruits  of  the  Spirit, 
but  not  yet  the  tenths.  .  .  .  Wherefore  faith  beginneth 
righteousness,  but  imputation  maketh  it  perfect  unto  the  day  of 
Christ,  (p.  252.)  .  .  .  Wherefore  let  those  which  give 
themselves  to  the  study  of  the  Holy  Scripture,  learn  out  of  this 
saying,  '  Abraham  believed  God,  and  it  was  counted  to  him  for 
righteousness,'  to  set  forth  truly  and  rightly  this  true  Christian 
righteousness  after  this  manner ; — that  it  is  a  faith  and  confid- 
ence in  the  Son  of  God — or  rather  a  confidence  of  the  heart  in 
God  through  Resits  Christ ;  and  let  them  add  this  clause  as  a 
difference  ;  which  faith  and  confidence  is  counted  righteousness 
for  Christ's  sake.  .  .  .  For  as  long  as  I  live  in  the  flesh, 
sin  is  truly  in  me.  But  because  I  am  covered  under  the  shadow 
of  Christ's  wings,  as  is  the  chicken  under  the  wings  of  the  hen, 
and  dwell  without  fear  under  that  most  ample  and  large  heaven 
of  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  which  is  spread  over  me,  God  cover- 
eth  and  pardoneth  the  remnant  of  sin  in  me  :  that  is  to  say, 
C  because  of  that  faith  wherewith  I  began  to  lay  hold  upon  Christ, 
'*  ffi  accepteth  my  imperfect  righteousness  even  for  perfect  righteous- 
ness, and  counteth  my  sin  for  no  sin,  which  notwithstanding  is 
sin  indeed."     (p.  254.) 

The  essence  of  the  difference  between  the  law  and  the 
gospel,  as  conceived  of  by  Luther,  seems  to  be  shortly  this : — 
that  the  law  reveals  man  himself  to  man, — that  the  gospel  re- 
veals God  to  man  : — that  the  law  brings  man  to  self-despair,  in 
order  that  the  gospel  may  teach  him  faith  and  hope  in  God. 
Therefore,  in  the  gospel,  and  not  in  the  law,  is  God  to  be  seen 
and  known. 

And  this  is  substantially  true.  For,  though  the  law,  being 
love,  may  seem  to  reveal  God  who  is  love,  yet  is  it  rather  a 
demand  for  love  than  a  revelation  of  love ;  and  though  it  might 


36  TEACHING  OF  LUTHER. 

have  been,  in  the  light  of  high  intelligence,  and  where  there  was 
no  darkening  of  sin,  concluded  that  love  alone  could  demand 
love,  yet  does  the  mere  demand  never  so  speak  to  sinners ; — 
but  "  by  the  law  is  the  knowledge  of  sin  :  "  wherefore  "  the  law 
worketh  wrath."  But  the  first  front  and  aspect  of  the  gospel 
is  the  revelation  of  love ;  then  follows  the  end  contemplated, 
the  quickening  of  love  in  us,  in  fact  the  fulfilment  of  the 
righteousness  of  the  law  in  us, — (Rom.  viii.  4,)  but  its  instrument 
of  working  is,  not  the  law,  but  grace.  "  Herein  is  love,  not  that 
we  loved  God,  but  that  He  loved  us,  and  sent  His  Son  to  be 
the  propitiation  for  our  sins ;"  "  We  love  Him  because  He  first 
loved  us." — "  If  God  so  loved  us  we  ought  also  to  love  one 
another." — 1  John  iv.  11. 

Therefore,  the  gospel  being  the  revelation  of  what  Godis, 
rather  than  of  what  He  calls  for, — though  therein  implying 
what  He  calls  for,  and  providing  for  its  accomplishment, — 
Luther,  understanding  this,  rests,  not  in  the  scheme  of  redemp- 
tion as  a  plan,  or  in  the  work  of  Christ  as  a  work,  the  parts  of 
which  he  is  careful  to  analyse,  that  he  may  turn  them  to  their 
several  uses  in  his  intercourse  with  God ;  but,  in  the  scheme 
and  the  work,  and  shining  through  all  the  details  of  the  work, 
he  sees  God  appearing  to  him  as  He  is  in  Himself,  as  He 
eternally  is ;  and  he  yields  his  heart  and  his  whole  being  to  the 
attraction  of  the  heavenly  vision.  Thus  he  learns  that  "  God 
is  the  God  of  the  humble,  the  miserable,  the  afflicted,  the 
oppressed  and  the  desperate,  and  of  those  that  are  brought  even 
to  nothing ;  and  His  nature  is  to  exalt  the  humble,  to  feed  the 
hungry,  to  give  sight  to  the  Dima,  to  comfort  the  miserable, 
the  afflicted,  the  bruised,  the  broken-hearted,  to  justify  sinners, 
to  quicken  the  dead,  and  to  save  the  very  desperate  and 
damned.  For  He  is  an  almighty  Creator,  and  maketh  all 
things  of  nothing."  (p.  321.)  Not  that  the  law  had  not 
spoken  truly  of  God,  not  only  when  it  declared  the  will  of  God 
as  to  what  man  should  be,  but  also  when  its  terrors  were  re- 
vealed in  the  conscience,  through  its  testimony  of  God's  wrath 
against  sin; — but  it  left  untold, — it  was  not  its  function  to  tell, 


TEACHING  OF  LUTHER.  37 

— what  deeper  thing  than  wrath  against  sin  was  in  God — even 
mercy  towards  the  sinner. 

So  Luther,  as  one  whom  "  the  gospel  hath  led  beyond  and 
above  the  light  of  law  and  reason  into  the  deep  secrets  of 
faith"  (p.  168),  and  to  a  knowledge  of  God  to  which  reason 
had  not  attained,  commenting  upon  the  words — "  Seeing  the 
world  by  wisdom  knew  not  God  in  the  wisdom  of  God,  it 
pleased  God  by  the  foolishness  of  preaching  to  save  them  that 
believe,"  applies  them  as  teaching  "  that  men  ought  to  abstain 
from  the  curious  searching  of  God's  majesty."  (p.  100.) — For 
"  true  Christian  divinity  setteth  not  God  forth  unto  us  in  His 
majesty,  as  Moses  and  other  doctors  do.  It  commandeth  us 
not  to  search  out  the  nature  of  God  ;  but  to  know  His  will  set 
out  to  us  in  Christ.  (Ibid.)  ....  Therefore  begin  thou  there 
where  Christ  began,  viz.,  in  the  womb  of  the  virgin,  in  the 
manger,  and  at  His  mother's  breasts,  &c.  For  to  this  end  He 
came  down,  was  born,  was  conversant  among  men,  suffered, 
was  crucified,  and  died,  that  by  all  means  He  might  set  forth 
Himself  plainly  before  our  eyes,  and  fasten  the  eyes  of  our 
hearts  upon  Himself;  that  thereby  He  might  keep  us  from 
climbing  up  into  heaven,  and  from  the  curious  searching  of  the 
divine  majesty.  Whensoever  thou  hast  to  do,  therefore,  in  the 
matter  of  justification,  and  disputest  with  thyself  how  God  is 
to  be  found  that  justifieth  and  accepteth  sinners  ;  where  and  in 
what  sort  He  is  to  be  sought ;  then  know  thou  that  there  is  no  \y^ 
other  God  besides  this  man  Christ  Jesus.  Embrace  Him  and 
cleave  to  Him  with  thy  whole  heart,  setting  aside  all  curious 
speculations  of  the  divine  majesty.  For  he  that  is  a  searcher  of 
God's  majesty  shall  be  overwhelmed  of  His  glory.  I  know  by 
experience  what  I  say.  But  these  vain  spirits,  which  so  deal 
with  God  that  they  exclude  the  Mediator,  do  not  believe  me. 
Christ  Himself  hath  said,  '  I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the 
life ;  no  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  Me,' — John  xiv.  6. 
Therefore,  besides  this  way,  Christ,  thou  shalt  find  no  way  to  the 
Father,  but  wandering,  no  verity,  but  hypocrisy  and  lying,  no 
life,  but  eternal  death.     Wherefore  mark  this  well  in  the  matter 

F 


I 


38  TEACHING    OF   LUTHER. 

of  justification,  that  when  any  of  us  wrestle  with  the  law,  sin, 
and  death,  and  all  other  evils,  we  must  look  upon  no  other 
God  but  this  God  incarnate  and  clothed  with  man's  nature. 
.  .  .  Look  on  this  man  Jesus  Christ  who  setteth  Himself  forth 
to  us  to  be  a  mediator,  and  saith  '  Come  unto  me  all  ye  that 
labour  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  refresh  you/ — Matt, 
xi.  28.  Thus  doing,  thou  shalt  perceive  the  love,  goodness, 
and  sweetness  of  God ;  thou  shalt  see  His  wisdom,  power,  and 
majesty,  sweetened  and  tempered  to  thy  capacity.  Yea  thou 
shalt  find  in  this  mirror  and  pleasant  contemplation  all  things 
according  to  that  saying  of  Paul  to  the  Colossians  :  '  In  Christ 
are  hid  all  the  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge.'  .... 
The  world  is  ignorant  of  this,  and  therefore  it  searcheth  out  the 
will  of  God,  setting  aside  the  promise  in  Christ  to  his  (its) 
great  destruction,  '  For  no  man  knoweth  the  Father  but  the 
Son,  and  he  to  whom  the  Son  will  reveal  Him,' — Matt.  xi.  27." 
(p.  101.) 

"  Philip  saith  unto  Him,  Lord,  shew  us  the  Father,  and 
it  sufficeth  us.  Jesus  saith  unto  Him,  Have  I  been  so 
long  with  you,  and  yet  hast  thou  not  known  me,  Philip? 
he  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father." — John  xiv. 
8,  9. 

I  add  two  more  quotations  to  the  same  effect.  "  For  in 
Christ  we  see  that  God  is  not  a  cruel  exactor  or  a  judge,  but  a 
most  favourable,  loving  and  merciful  Father,  who  to  the  end 
He  might  bless  us,  that  is  to  say,  deliver  us  from  the  law,  sin, 
death,  and  all  other  evils,  and  might  endue  us  with  grace, 
righteousness,  and  everlasting  life,  spared  not  His  own  Son, 
but  gave  Him  for  us  all.  This  is  a  true  knowledge  of  God  and 
a  divine  persuasion  which  deceiveth  us  not,  but  painteth  God 
unto  us  lively  (living)."  (p.  389.)  "  For  the  true  God  speaketh 
thus ;  No  righteousness,  wisdom,  nor  religion  pleaseth  Me  but 
that  only  whereby  the  Father  is  glorified  through  the  Son. 
Whosoever  apprehendeth  this  Son,  and  Me,  and  My  promise 
in  Him  by  faith,  to  him  I  am  a  God,  to  him  I  am  a  Father^ 
him  do  I  accept,  justify,   and  save.      All    others  abide  under 


TEACHING  OF  LUTHER.  39 

wrath  because  they  worship  that  thing  which  by  nature  is  no 
God."     (p.  390.) 

How  does  this  language  recall  that  of  the  Apostle  John, — 
"  And  we  know  that  the  Son  of  God  is  come,  and  hath  given  us 
an  understanding,  that  we  may  know  Him  that  is  true ;  and  we 
are  in  Him  that  is  true,  even  in  His  son  Jesus  Christ.  This  is 
the  true  God  and  eternal  life.  Little  children,  keep  yourselves 
from  idols.     Amen." — 1  John  v.  20,  21. 

One  other  point  remains  to  be  noticed  that  we  may  have 
distinctly  before  us   Luther's  teaching  on  the  subject  of  the 
atonement, — I  mean   the  weight  which  he  lays  on  the  rjer-       \|  h 
sonal  appropriation  of  the  atonement  as  of  the  very  essence 
of  faitk 

Of  course,  teaching  as  the  result  of  the  victory  of  Christ  over 
all  our  spiritual  enemies,  that  Christ  was  made  of  God  unto  us 
wisdom,  and  righteousness,  and  sanctification,  and  redemption, 
and  setting  forth  this  as  a  constitution  of  things  established  by 
God  in  His  love  to  man,  and  revealed  to  be  known  and 
received  by  faith,  he  could  not  teach  merely  that  men  might 
appropriate  Christ  and  His  work, — that  they  were  at  liberty 
so  to  do,  and  invited  so  to  do,  and  that  Christ  was  freely 
offered  to  them,  and  would  become  theirs  by  such  appro- 
priation. He  must  needs  teach  that  such  appropriation  was 
of  the  very  essence  of  faith ;  being  implied  in  the  most  simple 
reception  of  that  which  was  revealed.  But  he  has  a  further 
reason  for  insisting  on  this,  viz.,  that  in  this  personal  appro- 
priation he  recognised  at  once  the  power  and  the  difficulty  of 
faith. 

The  teaching  I  refer  to  is  in  his  comment  on  the  words, 
"  who  gave  Himself  for  our  sins,"  in  which,  after  insisting  on 
the  power  of  these  words  to  destroy  all  false  religions,  "For  if 
our  sins  be  taken  away  by  our  own  works,  merits,  and  satisfac- 
tions, what  needed  the  Son  of  God  to  be  given  for  them  ?  But 
seeing  He  was  given  for  them,  it  followeth  that  we  cannot  put 
them  away  by  our  own  works,"  (p.  104) — he  adds — "But  weigh 
diligently  every  word  of  Paul,  and  especially  mark  well  this 


■>y 


40  TEACHING  OF  LUTHER. 

pronoun  'our;'  for  the  effect  altogether  consisteth  in  the  well 
applying  of  the  pronouns,  which  we  find  very  often  in  the 
Scriptures,  wherein  also  there  is  ever  some  vehemency  and 
power  ....  Generally  and  without  the  pronoun  it  is  an  easy 
matter  to  magnify  and  amplify  the  benefit  of  Christ,  viz..  that 
Christ  was  given  for  sins,  but  for  other  men's  sins  which 
are  worthy.  But  when  it  cometh  to  the  putting  to  of  this 
pronoun  our,  there  our  weak  nature  and  reason  starteth 
back,  and  dare  not  come  nigh  unto  God,  nor  promise  to 
herself  that  so  great  a  treasure  shall  be  freely  given  unto  her." 
(p.  105.) 

This  is  said  in  reference  to  the  difficulty  in  believing  in  for- 
giveness noticed  above  as  what  comes  to  be  felt  as  soon  as  the 
need  of  forgiveness  begins  to  be  realised.  Of  this  Luther  was 
fully  aware,  as  well  as  of  the  unmeaning,  and,  indeed,  self- 
righteous  nature  of  those  general  confessions  of  sin  which  un- 
awakened  sinners  so  easily  make  ;  combining  with  them  as 
easily  expressed  a  trust  in  Christ  : — in  reference  to  which  he 
says — "  Men's  reason  would  fain  bring  and  present  unto  God  a 
feigned  and  counterfeit  sinner,  which  is  nothing  afraid,  nor  hath 
any  feeling  of  sin.  It  would  bring  him  that  is  whole,  and  not 
him  that  hath  need  of  a  physician,  and  when  it  feeleth  no  sin, 
then  would  it  believe  that  Christ  was  given  for  our  sins." 
u  But,'*  says  he,  M  learn  here  of  Paul,  to  believe  that  Christ  was 
given,  not  for  feigned  or  counterfeit  sins,  nor  yet  for  small  sins, 
but  for  great  and  large  sins  ;  not  for  one  or  two,  but  for  all ; 
not  for  vanquished  sins  (for  no  man,  no,  nor  angel,  is  able  to 
subdue  the  least  sin  that  is),  but  for  invincible  sins.  And  ex- 
cept thou  be  found  among  those  that  say  '  our  sins,'  that  is  which 
have  this  doctrine  of  faith,  and  both  hear,  love,  and  believe  the 
same,  there  is  no  salvation  for  thee.  (p.  106.)  ....  I  speak 
not  this  without  cause,  for  I  know  what  moveth  me  to  be 
so  earnest  that  we  should  leam  to  define  Christ  out  of  the 
words  of  Paul.  For  indeed  Christ  is  no  cruel  exactor  but  a 
forgiver  of  the  sins  of  the  whole  world.  .  .  .  Learn  this  defi- 
nition  diligently,  and  especially  so  to  exercise  this  pronoun  our, 


TEACHING  OF  LUTHER.  41 

that  this  one  syllable  being  believed  may  swallow  up  all  thy 
sins."     (p.  108.) 

I  have  reluctantly  curtailed  these  quotations  from  Luther's 
commentary  on  the  Apostle  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Galatians, — 
into  the  spirit  of  which  the  great  Reformer  has  so  truly  entered. 
The  deep  insight  into  our  redemption,  as  it  has  taken  its  charac- 
ter from  our  being  "under  the  law"  and  "unjust,"  which  he 
manifests ; — his  vivid  realisation  of  "  the  grace  wherein  we 
stand,"  being  redeemed ; — his  true  appreciation  of  the  glory 
which  God  has  in  our  faith  ; — his  discernment  of  the  relation 
in  which  the  peace  and  confidence  towards  God,  which  are 
present  in  faith,  stand  to  the  perfection  of  the  revelation 
of  the  Father  in  the  Son ;  the  personal  interest  in  Christ, 
which  he  recognises  as  possessed  by~all  men,  and  revealed  to 
faith  in  the  gospel ;  and  the  importance  which  he  attaches  to 
an  appropriating  response  on  our  part :  these  all  are  aspects 
of  truth  which  I  am  thankful  should  now  be  present  to  the 
mind  of  my  reader  in  Luther's  strong  and  vivid  form  of  speech. 

/  As  to  my  immediate  subject — the  nature  of  the  .atonement — I 
have  admitted  that  he  does  not  offer  much  help  towards  a  clear 

^intellectual  apprehension  of  it.  Christ's  identifying  of  Himself 
with  us,  "joining  Himself  to  the  company  of  the  accursed, 
taking  unto  Him  their  flesh  and  blood,"  in  order  that  in 
humanity  He  might  encounter  "  our  sin,"  and  "  our  death,"  and 
"our  curse"  (p.  301);  and  the  consequent  conflict  between 
these  and  Christ's  own  eternal  righteousness,  as  meeting  to- 
gether in  Him, — and  the  triumph  of  that  divine  righteousness, 
issuing  in  our  redemption; — these  are  conceptions  which  he 
may  have  been  content  to  hold  as  matters  of  revealed  fact,  but 
still  mysteries  which  precluded  clear  intellectual  apprehension. 
Yet  the  earnestness  with  which  he  insists  upon  the  presence 
together  of  these  opposites  in  Christ,  and  on  the  reality  of  their 
conflict  as  matter  of  consciousness  to  Christ, — taken  along  with 
his  true  understanding  of  our  participation  in  Christ  and  His 
righteousness, — give  me  the  conviction  that  Luther  was  indeed 
contemplating  spiritual  realities  which  had  a  place  in  the  work 


X 


* 


"/ 


42  TEACHING  OF  LUTHER. 

of  redemption  when  using  language  as  to  the  nearness  of  the 
relation  to  us,  and  to  our  sin,  into  which  Christ  came,  which 
has,  and  not  without  cause,  given  so  much  offence.  In  Luther's 
apprehension,  Christ's  bearing  of  our  sins  was  not  a  mere: impu- 
tation in  the  mind  of  another  ;  it_was  a  deep  ;md  painful 
reality  in  his  own  mind  j  and  the  victory  of  righteousness  in 
Him  was  not  such  in  respect  of  the  award  to  righteousness 
by  another,  but  a  victory  obtained  by  righteousness  itself  as  a 
living  divine  might  in  Him.  A  legal  fiction  would  be  no 
explanation.  The  assumption  of  a  delusive  consciousness 
Luther  would  reject.  What  the  truth  of  the  case  has  been, 
(and  which,  as  having  taken  place  in  humanity,  may  be  expected 
to  be  utterable  to  men,)  Luther's  words,  as  he  has  written,  do 
not  make  us  to  know;  whatever  spiritual  truth  these  words 
have  had  in  his  own  mind  : — for  interpreted  according  to  their 
plain  grammatical  meaning,  the  words  by  which  he  expresses 
Christ's  relation  to  our  sins  cannot  be  true.  His  use  of  them 
is,  therefore,  not  to  be  defended.  Yet  shall  we  suffer  loss  if  we 
allow  ourselves  to  suppose  that  as  used  by  a  man  of  so  much 
spiritual  insight  as  Luther  they  had  not  a  meaning  at  once  true 
and  important.  Indeed,  if  there  be  not  a  true  sense  in  which 
Christ  did  bear  on  His  spirit  the  weight  of  our  sins,  and  all  our 
evils,  and  did  deal  with  the  law  of  God  as  so  bearing  them, 
seeking  redemption  for  us, — and  did  triumph  in  so  doing  by  the 
might  of  righteousness,  Luther's  marvellous  teaching  of  justifi- 
cation by  faith  alone  is  left  a  superstructure  without  a  founda- 
tion. 


^^t:^ 


„& 


43 


CHAPTER  III. 

CALVINISM,    AS    TAUGHT    BY    DR.    OWEN    AND    PRESIDENT 
EDWARDS. 

T  F  the  great  Reformer's  teaching  had  obtained  and  kept  pos- 
session  of  the  faith  of  the  reformed  Church,  and  that  I  could 
calculate  on  the  presence  in  the  minds  of  my  readers  of  his 
preaching  of  Christ,  I  might  now  proceed  to  consider  the 
nature  of  the  atonement,  without  further  preface  or  prepara- 
tion. But  I  need  not  say  how  far  the  fact  is  otherwise.  And 
as  I  am  anxious  to  carry  along  with  me  the  minds  of  those  who 
not  only  believe  in  the  atonement,  but  give  it  that  very  promi- 
nent place  which  it  has  in  the  teaching  usually  designated 
"  evangelical," — though  my  appeal  is  not  to  what  is  specially 
distinctive  of  any,  but  is  to  the  consciences  of  all, — I  shall  now 
detain  my  readers  for  a  little  with  the  teaching  on  the  subject 
of  the  atonement  associated  with  the  name  of  Calvin. 

Calvinism,  as  now  livingin  our  generation  of  men,  presents 
to  our  attention  two  very~distinctly  marked  forms  ; — the  one, 
that  which  I  believe  those  who  hold  it  would  recognise  as  best 
expounded  by  Dr.  Owen  and  President  Edwards ;  to  whom  I 
may  add  Dr.  Chalmers,  (whose  recognition  of  Edwards  as  his 
theological  teacher  is  known,  and  is  abundantly  manifest  in  his 
"  Institutes  of  Theology ; ")  the  other  is  that  recent  modification 
of  Calvinism  which  is  presented  to  us  in  the  writings  of  Dr. 
Pye  Smith,  Dr.  Payne  and  Dr.  Jenkyn,  in  England ;  and  Dr. 
Wardlaw,  in  Scotland.     I  name  these  writers  only — while  I  am 


44  CALVINISM,  AS  TAUGHT 

aware  that  there  are  others,  because  my  knowledge  of  the 
system  is  derived  from  them. 

Two  centuries  separate  us  from  Dr.  Owen,  and  one  from 
President  Edwards ;  but  their  theology,  which  is  one,  still  lives 
in  the  present  generation — of  the  Presbyterian  section  at  least 
— of  the  Church  in  Scotland  ;  and,  I  presume,  has  much  hold 
on  men's  minds  also  in  England  and  in  America.  No  man 
can  accord  with  these  two  men  in  their  faith  without  rejoicing 
in  them  as  bulwarks  of  that  faith.  Owen's  clear  intellect,  and 
Edwards'  no  less  unquestionable  power  of  a  distinct  and  dis- 
criminating thought,  combined  with  a  calmer,  and  more  weighty, 
and  more  solemn  tone  of  spirit ; — the  former  writing  as  a  man 
whose  life  was  much  one  of  theological  controversy,  the  latter 
more  as  living  among  religious  awakenings  of  which  he  was  at 
once  a  subject  and  the  instrument; — justify  our  regarding  them 
as  having  set  forth  the  modification  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
atonement  which  they  teach  to  the  greatest  advantage  of  which 
it  is  capable : — while,  wherein  any  may  think  it  dark  and 
repulsive,  they  hide  nothing,  gloss  over  nothing,  soften  nothing ; 
for  they  were  true  men,  and  not  ashamed  of  the  Christ  in  whom 
they  believed. 

Luther's  anxiety  to  warn  men  "  to  abstain  from  the  curious 
searching  of  God's  majesty,"  has  been  noticed  above.  Not  by 
such  searching,  but  by  becoming  acquainted  with  Jesus  Christ 
would  he  teach  us  to  expect  the  true  knowledge  of  God ;  and 
this  counsel  is  altogether  in  the  spirit  of  the  words,  "  In  Him 
was  life,  and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men."  "  He  that  hath 
seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father."  How  sound  Luther's  judg- 
ment was  in  sending  us  to  Jesus,  that  in  Him  we  might  see  and 
embrace  God  manifested  in  the  flesh ;  and  how  much  was  thus 
to  be  learned  which  systematic  theology  cannot  teach,  and  yet 
which  we  must  learn  if  our  systematic  thought  is  to  be  safe, 
may  well  be  suggested  to  us  by  the  history  of  the  preparation 
for  their  high  calling  which  the  disciples  received.  Only  after 
their  Lord's  resurrection  were  their  minds  open  to  understand 
that  "  it  behoved  Christ  to  suffer,  and  afterwards  to  enter  into 


BY  DR.  OWEN  AND   PRESIDENT  EDWARDS.      45 

His  glory."  Yet  were  they,  in  that  ignorance,  already  far 
advanced  in  the  true  knowledge  of  God,  because  in  the  true 
knowledge  of  Christ — not  of  His  work,  and  of  its  bearing,  but 
of  Himself.  Luther,  in  telling  us  "to  go  straight  to  the  manger, 
and  embrace  the  Virgin's  little  babe  in  our  arms,"  expresses  a 
sense  of  God's  approachableness,  as  divested  of  all  terrors  and 
revealed  in  the  simple  confiding  attraction  of  love,  which  we 
feel  full  of  instruction.  We  can  conceive  the  long  self-tortured 
monk,  who  had  sought  God  earnestly  but  ignorantly,  thinking, 
as  he  tells  us,  of  Christ  as  an  exactor  and  judge,  as  now,  in  the 
light  of  love,  contemplating  the  infant  Jesus,  and  saying  to  him- 
self, "  This  is  God,  thus  does  God  come  among  men  ; " — and, 
while  the  whole  life  in  the  flesh  of  which  that  is  the  dawn, 
passes  before  him  in  thought,  and  he  traces  the  Lord's  path 
from  the  manger  to  the  cross,  and  then  on  to  glory,  we  can 
conceive  of  him  as  repeating  to  himself — "  This  is  my  God,  in 
this  God  am  I  to  put  my  trust ; "  and  we  can  understand  how, 
while  contrasting  what  he  is  thus  consciously  learning  of  "  the 
true  God  and  eternal  life  "  with  all  the  results  of  men's  "  curious 
searching  of  God's  majesty"  with  which  he  was  not  unacquainted, 
he  would  treasure  up  his  own  conscious  experience, — to  minister 
it  to  others  for  warning  and  guidance. 

Now,  what,  in  passing  from  the  record  of  Luther's  thoughts 
on  the  atonement  to  that  of  the  thinking  of  Owen  and  Edwards, 
has  come  vividly  home  to  my  mind,  is,  that  it  would  be  well 
that  they  had  proceeded  more  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of 
Luther's  warning  now  referred  to.  Not  that  I  would  presume 
to  speak  of  their  solemn  weighing  of  the  question  "  what  is 
divine  justice?  and  to  what  conclusions  does  it  lead  on  the 
subject  of  the  atonement ? "  "as  curious  searching ;"  but  that 
it  seems  to  me  that  it  would  have  been  well  that  they  had  used 
the  life  of  Christ  more  as  their  light. 

That  I  say  not  this  self-confidently,  or  on  slight  grounds,  will, 
I  trust,  be  made  clear  to  my  readers  as  we  proceed.  I  do  not 
make  little  account  of  philosophy,  nor  would  I  be  contented  to 
see  it  sharing  in  the  Apostle's  condemnation  of  "  philosophy 


46  CALVINISM,  AS  TAUGHT 

falsely  so  called."  I  believe  that  a  true  philosophy  has  often 
done  much  service  to  religion ; — neither  can  I  understand  how 
a  philosophical  mind  can,  without  submitting  to  fetters  which  I 
believe  are  not  of  God,  be  contented  to  hold  a  religion  which 
is  not  to  it  also  a  philosophy,  and  the  highest  philosophy.  But 
no  one  will  doubt  that  the  beloved  disciple  John,  who  attained 
to  such  high  apprehensions  of  God,  and  to  whom  we  listen, 
telling  us  that  "  God  is  love,"  as  to  one  speaking  himself  in  the 
light  of  the  eternal  love,  and  had  his  high — and  the  only  adequate 
— training  for  this  divine  philosophy  when  following  the  foot- 
steps of  Jesus,  listening  to  His  words,  seeing  His  deeds,  and, 
from  time  to  time,  favoured  to  lean  upon  His  breast.  "  That 
which  was  from  the  beginning,  which  we  have  heard,  which  we 
have  seen  with  our  eyes,  which  we  have  looked  upon,  and  our 
hands  have  handled  of  the  Word  of  life ;  (For  the  life  was 
manifested,  and  we  have  seen  and  bear  witness,  and  show  unto 
you  that  eternal  life  which  was  with  the  Father,  and  was  mani- 
fested unto  us  ;)  That  which  we  have  seen  and  heard  declare 
we  unto  you,  that  ye  also  may  have  fellowship  with  us  :  and 
truly  our  fellowship  is  with  the  Father  and  with  His  Son  Jesus 
Christ." — i  John  i.  1-3. 

I  am  not  going  to  analyse  the  reasoning  on  the  Divine  Attri- 
butes by  Dr.  Owen  and  President  Edwards  to  which  I  refer,  and 
as  to  which  I  feel  as  if  the  recorded  work  of  Christ  were  con- 
templated in  their  system  in  the  light  of  that  reasoning, — rather  j 
than  that  reasoning  engaged  in  after  the  due  study  of  the  life 
of  Christ.  It  has  been  said  that  Calvinism  is  a  philosophy  in  '»vK 
its  essence ;  and  I  do  not  object  to  it  on  that  account,  but 
because  it  is  not  to  me  a  true  philosophy.  If  what  I  have 
already  said  of  the  hope  for  sinful  man  that  should  be  found  in 
the  righteousness  and  holiness  of  God,  no  less  than  in  His  love 
— contemplating  these  divine  attributes,  as  much  as  may  be,  in 
i  their  distinctness, — be  present  to  the  mind  of  my  readers,  it 
will  be  felt  by  those  of  them  that  are  familiar  with  the  theolo- 
gical writings  of  Owen  and  Edwards,  that,  however  clear  their 
reasonings  are  as  reasonings,  they  must  appear  to  me  open  to  this 


BY  DR.  OWEN  AND  PRESIDENT  EDWARDS.      47 

fundamental  objection,  that  they  leave  out  of  account  certain 
important  first  principles.  But  not  to  engage  in  the  analysis  of 
what  in  the  pages  of  Edwards  especially  I  have  read  with  so 
solemn  and  deep  an  interest  as  listening  to  a  great  and  holy 
man,  while,  at  the  same  time,  feeling  the  axiomatic  defect  to 
which  I  have  referred,  it  will  be  enough  for  my  present  purpose 
to  notice  the  results  arrived  at. 

I.  The  most  palpable  of  these  results,  and  that  which 
first  attracts  attention,  is  the  limitation  of  the  atonement ; — I 
mean  the  conceiving  of  it  as  having  reference  only  to  a  certain 
elected  portion  of  the  human  family. 

This  result  arose  naturally,  and,  it  seems  to  me,  most 
logically,  from  the  first  principles  from  which  these  clear  and 
acute  thinkers  have  reasoned.  The  divine  justice  is  conceived 
of  by  them  as,  by  a  necessity  of  the  divine  nature,  awarding 
eternal  misery  to  sin,  and  eternal  blessedness  to  righteousness. 
That  the  sinner  may  be  saved  from  this  misery,  and  partake 
in  this  blessedness,  he  must,  in  the  person  of  Christ,  endure 
the  misery  thus  due  to  sin,  and  fulfil  the  righteousness  of 
which  this  blessedness  is  the  due  reward.  But  the  co-relative 
position  is,  that,  having  thus,  in  the  person  of  Christ,  endured 
the  punishment  of  sin,  he  cannot  in  justice  be  eventually 
punished  himself ;  and  that,  having,  in  like  manner,  fulfilled  all 
righteousness,  he  must  in  justice  receive  the  reward  of  that 
righteousness.  "  The  sum  of  all  is,  the  death  and  blood- 
shedding  of  Jesus  Christ  hath  wrought,  and  doth  effectually 
procure  for  all  those  that  are  concerned  in  it,  eternal  redemp- 
tion, consisting  in  grace  here  and  glory  hereafter."  (Vol.  x. 
159.)  All  that  is  of  the  nature  of  pain  and  suffering  in  the 
history  of  our  Lord,  from  what  the  cries  of  feeble  infancy  tell, 
with  what  aggravation  may  have  been  in  the  circumstances  of 
the  manger  and  the  stable,  and  the  lowly  lot  of  Mary  and 
Joseph,  on  to  the  mysterious  agony  of  Gethsemane,  and  that 
which  seems  to  them  indicated,  if  not  revealed  in  the  cry  on 
the  cross,  "  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  Me  ?" 
— all  this  is  set  down  as  penal  suffering — the  punishment  of 


& 


48  CALVINISM,  AS  TAUGHT 

the  sins  of  the  elect.  On  the  other  hand,  all  that  is  of  the 
nature  of  holiness,  goodness,  obedience,  fulfilling  of  all  right- 
eousness, from  the  same  dawn  to  the  solemn  close,  and  the 
submission  of  will  uttered  in  the  words,  "  the  cup  which  my 
Father  gives  Me  to  drink,  shall  I  not  drink  it  ?" — "  Father, 
into  Thy  hands  I  commend  My  Spirit " — all  this  is  set  down  as 
accomplishing  that  perfect  righteousness  which  is  to  endow 
the  elect  with  a  title  to  eternal  blessedness. 

The  grace  of  God  according  to  this  conception, — that  is, 
His  grace  to  the  elect, — is,  properly  speaking,  manifested  in 
the  original  gift  of  Christ ;  all  the  subsequent  history  is  the 
just  and  faithful  acting  out  of  the  details  of  a  covenant  thus 
graciously  entered  into  with  Christ  for  the  elect."  But,  of 
course,  the  original  grace  underlies  all  the  subsequent  history; 
so  that,  while,  in  one  sense,  the  pardon  of  the  sins  of  the  elect 
is  a  matter  of  simple  justice,  Christ  having  borne  the  punish- 
ment of  their  sins  ;  and  the  bestowal  of  eternal  blessedness 
upon  them  is,  also,  a  matter  of  simple  justice,  Christ's  right- 
eousness having  endowed  them  with  a  right  to  that  blessedness, 
— still  the  whole  dispensation  is  one  grace. 

Adhering  strictly  to  his  conception  of  the  fixed  relation 
between  sin  and  its  due  punishment,  Owen  anxiously  Insists 
upon  the  identity  of  that  punisnment  which  Christ  endured 
for  the  elect,  with  what  they  would  have  endured  themselves, 
and  what  the  non-elect  do  eventually  endure.  "Now,  from 
all  this,  thus  much  (to  clear  up  the  nature  of  the  satisfaction 
made  by  Christ)  appeareth,  viz. — It  was  a  full^jyaluahle^ 
pensation  made  to  the  justice  of  God  for  all  the  sins 
those  for  whom  He  made  satisfaction,  by  undergoing  that 
same  punishment  which,  by  reason  of  the  obligation  that  was 
upon  them,  they  themselves  were  bound  to  undergo.  When 
I  say  the  same  I  mean  essentially  the  same  in  weight  and 
pressure,  though  not  in  all  accidents  of  duration  and  the  like ; 
for  it  was  impossible  that  He  should  be  detained  by  death." 
(p.  269.)  His  language  everywhere  is  in  harmony  with  this 
conception ;  as  to  which  I  do  not  feel  that  it  is  justly  liable 


BY  DR.  OWEN  AND  PRESIDENT  EDWARDS.      49 

to  the  treatment  which  it  has  received  when  objected  to  as  a 
mercenary,  and  so  an  unworthy  view  of  the  subject.  The 
mere  language  of  commerce,  viz.,  "  purchase,  ransom,"  &c,  is 
not  Owen's,  but  that  of  the  Scriptures ;  and  as  to  the  substance 
of  his  meaning,  it  is  simply  that  the  justice  of  God  punishes 
sin  as  it  deserves,  and  that,  having  in  the  exercise  of  an 
unerring  judgment  once  determined  what  is  deserved,  God 
cannot  be  conceived  of  as  acting  in  any  way  that  would  imply 
a  change  of  mind. 

As  to  the  difficulties  that  present  themselves,  the  moment 
the  attempt  is  made  to  form  clear  conceptions  of  what  has 
thus  been  asserted, — that  is  to  say,  to  conceive  to  ourselves,  on 
the  one  hand,  what  the  punishment  was  which  the  elect  were 
bound  to  undergo  ;  and  then,  on  the  other  hand,  how  Christ 
can  have  endured  the  punishment  so  conceived  of ;  —  with 
these  difficulties  Owen  does  not  really  grapple.  Edwards, 
indeed,  approaches  this  solemn  subject  more  nearly ;  and 
there  is  no  passage  in  his  exposition  of  "  The  Satisfaction  for 
Sin  "  made  by  Christ  of  deeper  interest  than  the  one  in  which 
he  does  so.  After  premising  that  "  Christ  suffered  the  wrath 
of  God  for  men's  sins  in  such  a  way  as  He  was  capable  of, 
being  an  infinitely  holy  person  who  knew  that  God  was  not  \/* 
angry  with  Him  personally — knew  that  God  did  not  hate  Him, 
but  infinitely  loved  him,"  he  goes  on  to  specify  two  ways  in 
which  he  conceives  that  Christ  could  endure  the  wrath  of 
God.  But  the  elements  of  suffering  which  he  specifies,  how- 
ever connected  with  the  sin  of  those  for  whom  Christ  died, 
cannot  be  recognised  as  the  punishment  which  they  themselves 
were  bound  to  undergo,  —  if  such  sufferings  can  rightly  be 
represented  as  rjunishment  at  all.  But,  not  to  enter  here  on 
the  nature  of  the  sufferings  specified,  when  explanations  are 
offered  as  to  how  Christ  endured  the  punishment  of  the  sins 
of  those  for  whom  He  died,  the  important  point  is,  that  His 
sufferings  are  regarded  as  implying,  that  it  would  be  unjust 
that  those  should  themselves  eventually  suffer  punishment  for 
whom  He  had  suffered,  as  in  the  same  way  it  was  held,  that 


> 


-f 


50  CALVINISM,  AS  TAUGHT 

it  would  be  unjust  that  those  should  not  eventually  inherit 
eternal  blessedness  for  whom  Christ  had  merited  eternal 
blessedness. 

We  are  not  to  wonder  that,  having  come  to  such  conclusions 
as  these  from  such  axioms  as  that  "  God  is  just "  and  that 
"  God  is  immutable,"  texts  of  Scripture  such  as  those  who 
believe  that  the  atonement  was  for  all  men,  quote  in  proof  of 
that  doctrine,  were,  however  large  their  sound,  urged  with 
little  effect.  Some  of  these  might  seem  difficult  of  explanation 
on  their  system — others  might  be  more  easily  disposed  of. 
No  one  ever  took  more  ingenuity  to  such  a  task  than  Owen 
did  ;  as  no  one  ever  urged  more  perplexingly  the  dilemmas 
in  which  those  were  involved,  who,  agreeing  with  him  as  to 
the  nature  of  the  atonement,  differed  from  him  as  to  its 
reference.  "  To  which  I  may  add  this  dilemma  to  our  univer- 
salists"  (i.e.  those  who  held  that  Christ  had  died  for  all), 
'•  God  imposed  His  wrath  due  unto,  and  Christ  underwent 
the  pains  of  hell  for,  either  all  the  sins  of  all  men,  or  all  the 
sins  of  some  men,  or  some  sins  of  all  men.  If  the  last,  some 
sins  of  all  men,  then  have  all  men  some  sins  to  answer  for, 
and  so  shall  no  man  be  saved ;  for  if  God  enter  into  judgment 
with  us,  though  it  were  with  all  mankind  for  one  sin,  no 
flesh  should  be  justified  in  His  sight.  '  If  the  Lord  should 
mark  iniquities  who  should  stand?'  .  .  .  If  the  second, 
that  is  it  which  we  affirm,  that  Christ  in  their  stead  and  room 
suffered  for  all  the  sins  of  all  the  elect  in  the  world.  If  the 
first,  why  then  are  not  all  freed  from  the  punishment  of  all 
their  sins  ?  You  will  say,  '  Because  of  their  unbelief ;  they 
will  not  believe.'  But  this  unbelief,  is  it  a  sin,  or  not?  If 
not,  why  should  they  be  punished  for  it?  If  it  be,  then 
Christ  underwent  the  punishment  due  to  it,  or  not.  If  so, 
then  why  must  that  hinder  them  more  than  their  other  sins 
for  which  He  died  from  partaking  of  the  fruit  of  His  death  ? 
If  he  did  not,  then  did  He  not  die  for  all  their  sins.  Let  them 
choose  which  part  they  will."  (p.  173.)  I  add  his  winding 
up  of  a  striking  argument   on   Mark  x.  45  :  "I   shall  add  no 


BY  DR.  OWEN  AND  PRESIDENT  EDWARDS.       51 

more  but  this,  that  to  affirm  Christ  to  die  for  all  men  is  the 
readiest  way  to  prove  that  He  died  for  no  man  in  the  sense 
Christians  have  hitherto  understood."  (p.  290.) — As  addressed 
to  those  who  agreed  with  him  as  to  the  nature  of  the  atone- 
ment, while  differing  with  him  as  to  the  extent  of  its  reference, 
this  seems  unanswerable. 

To  those  who  approach  the  subject  of  the  atonement  with 
the  conviction  that  Christ  died  for  all  men,  and  who  see  this 
to  be  clearly  revealed  in  the  Scriptures,  it  must  be  an  insuper- 
able objection  to  any  view  taken  of  the  nature  of  the  atone- 
ment that  it  is  inconsistent  with  this  faith ;  and  I  have  already 
alluded  to  the  fact,  that  the  force  felt  to  be  in  such  reasonings 
as  those  just  quoted,  assuming  the  truth  of  that  conception  of 
the  atonement  on  which  they  proceed,  has  latterly  led  those 
who  contend  that  Christ  died  for  all  to  reconsider  the  nature  of 
the  atonement.  I  am  thankful  for  this  result.  That  cannot  be 
the  true  conception  of  the  nature  of  the  atonement  which  implies 
that  Christ  died  only  for  an  electio?i  from  among  men. 

But,  besides  the  scripture  argument  against  the  limitation  of 
the  atonement,  on  which  I  do  not  enter,  I  would  notice  two 
important  further  conclusions  which  that  limitation  involves, 
and  which  are  very  weighty  objections  to  the  doctrine  to  which 
they  are  ultimately  traceable. 

1.  The  limitation  of  the  atonement,  and  therefore  the  con- 
ception of  the  nature  of  the  atonement  which  implies  that 
limitation,  abstracts  from  the  faith  of  the  gospel  that  element 
on  which  Luther  lays  so  much  stress  in  what  he  says  of  the 
use  of  the  pronoun  "  our."  This  it  does  because  it  takes  away 
the  warrant  which  the  *tmiversality  of  the  atonement  gives  to 
every  man  that  hears  the  gospel  to  contemplate  Christ  with, 
the  personal  appropriation  of  the  words  of  the  apostle,  "  who 
loved  me,  and  gave  Himself  for  me." 

This  Owen  fully  admits,  but  he  denies  that  any  man  is  asked 
to  believe,  as  the  first  act  of  faith,  that  Christ  died  for  him  in 
particular,  or  to  believe  anything  but  what  he  recognises  as 
actually  revealed.     He  then  proceeds  to  state  successive  acts 


4 


52  CALVINISM,  AS  TAUGHT 

or  steps  of  faith ;  in  each  one  of  which  the  believer  has  a  clear 
scripture  warrant  for  his  faith  ;  but  the  taking  each  successive 
step  of  which  narrows  the  circle  of  those  who  come  to  be 
dealt  with;  some  taking  the  first  step  who  will  not  take  the 
second ;  some  taking  both  who  will  not  take  the  third ;  some 
taking  the  first  three  who  will  not  take  the  fourth  : — while  as  to 
those  who  take  the  whole  four,  their  having  taken  them  has 
become  a  ground  for  that  personal  appropriation  of  Christ,  as 
their  own  Saviour  in  particular,  which  was  not  afforded  by  the 
revelation  made  in  the  gospel  message,  but  which  has  thus 
been  added  by  that  work  of  grace  which  has  proceeded  so  far 
in  them,  and  has  individualised  them  as  persons  for  whom 
Christ  died ;  "  for  certainly  Christ  died  for  every  one  in 
whose  heart  the  Lord  by  His  almighty  power  works  effectu- 
ally faith  to  lay  hold  on  Him,  and  assent  unto  Him  according 
to  that    orderly  proposal   that  is  held   forth   in   the   gospel." 

(P-  3i5-) 

But  the  difficulty  of  dealing  with  awakened  sinners  on  this 
system  has  been  practically  felt  to  be  very  great.  And  the 
importance,  with  reference  to  all  fruit  of  that  faith  whose 
nature  it  is  to  work  by  love,  of  being  able  to  realise  that 
relation  to  Christ  which  the  words  "  who  loved  me,  and  gave 
Himself  for  me,"  express,  has  pressed  so  upon  such  men  as 
Boston  and  others,  in  the  days  of  our  fathers,  that,  in  order  to 
facilitate  that  "  appropriating  act  of  faith  "  on  which  so  much 
depended,  they  introduced  that  doctrine  of  "  a  deed  of  gift  of 
Christ  to  all  men,"  which  they  combined  with  the  faith,  still 
adhered  to,  that  He  died  only  for  the  elect ; — shewing  what  a 
response  Luther's  teaching  as  to  the  use  of  the  pronoun  "  our  " 
has  had,  even  when  that  broad  basis  of  an  atonement  for  all 
on  which  Luther  stood  has  not  been  seen  to  be  the  truth  of 
God. 

Another  indication  of  the  same  response  is  presented  in 
Dr.  Chalmers'  Institute,  in  the  chapter  on  "  the  universality  of 
the  gospel."  I  refer  to  the  tone  of  the  whole  chapter,  but 
quote   only  these  words  : — "  The  particular  redemption  of  all 


BY  DR.  OWEN  AND  PRESIDENT  EDWARDS.       53 

who  are  saved,  is  made  good  by  their  right  entertainment  of 
those  texts  which  are  alleged  in  behalf  of  universal  redemp- 
tion j  and  it  is  the  very  entertai?iment  which  the  advocates  of  this 
doctrine  would  have  all  men  to  bestow  upon  them.  And  so  I  am 
sure  would  we.  We  should  like  each  individual  of  the  world's 
population  to  assume  specially  for  himself  every  passage  in  the 
Bible  where  Christ  is  held  forth  generally  to  men  or  generally 
to  sinners,  and  would  assure  him  that,  did  he  only  proceed 
upon  these,  he  would  infallibly  be  saved.'*  I  am  not  sure  to 
what  the  concession  that  seems  to  be  made  in  the  words  which 
I  have  marked  by  italics  really  amounts,  and  am  fearful  of 
even  seeming  to  strain  his  words.  I  know  indeed  that  "  that 
entertainment  which  the  advocates  of  universal  redemption 
would  have  all  men  to  bestow "  upon  "  the  texts  which  they 
allege  in  behalf  of  that  doctrine  "  includes  this,  that  each  man 
should  assume,  on  the  authority  of  these  texts  that  Christ  died 
for  him, — that  Christ  is  made  of  God  unto  him,  wisdom,  and 
righteousness,  and  sanctification,  and  redemption.  How  far 
Dr.  Chalmers  means  that  any  man,  assuming  this,  and  trusting 
Christ  accordingly,  is  justified  in  so  doing,  and  is  saved  by  so 
doing,  I  am  not  quite  certain,  considering  that  he  insists  so 
much  on  the  word  "offer;"  but  this  much  is,  I  think,  abun- 
dantly clear,  that  he  recognises  the  importance  of  the  appropria- 
ting act  of  faith,  while  adhering  to  the  doctrine  of  a  limited 
atonement. 

But  thus  to  use  the  expressions  of  Scripture  in  a  vague  large- 
ness in  connection  with  the  faith  of  an  atonement  for  the  elect 
only,  affords  no  real  basis  for  that  personal  appropriation  of 
Christ  which  is  recognised  as  so  needful  to  the  practical  work- 
ing of  Christianity.  And  those  who  see  clearly  that  the  Apostle 
could  not  have  said,  "lam  crucified  with  Christ ;  nevertheless 
I  live ;  yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me,"  unless  he  had  first 
known  that  Christ  "  had  loved  him,  and  given  Himself  for  him," 
must  see  that  such  previous  knowledge  in  the  Apostle  implied 
that  the  gospeljn  which  he  had  believed  had  imparted  that  know- 
ledge.    However  much  Owen's  four  steps  of  faith  without  this 


54 


CALVINISM,  AS  TAUGHT 


S\ 


Ta 


personal  appropriation,  followed  by  a  fifth,  in  which,  through 
the  help  of  these  previous  four,  that  appropriation  is  at- 
tained, must  repel  us  as  a  departure  from  the  simplicity 
of  faith,  his  teaching  is  consistent  with  the  doctrine  of  a 
limited  atonement ;  but  how,  without  the  element  of  an  indi- 
cation in  the  inner  man  of  the  individual  that  he  is  of  the 
elect,  the  certainty  of  a  personal  interest  in  Christ  can  be 
reached  by  one  believing  that  Christ  died  for  the  elect  only, 
I  cannot  conceive. 

2.  But  a  more  solemn  result  of  limiting  the  atonement  re- 
mains to  be  noticed,  viz.,  that  as  appears  to  me,  it  makes  the 
work  of  Christ  to  be  no  longer  a  revelation  of  the  name  of  God, 
no  longer  a  work  revealing  that  God  is  love. 

The  conception  of  the  nature  of  the  atonement  on  which 
the  system  of  Owen  and  Edwards  proceeds,  and  the  reasonings 
in  relation  to  the  Divine  Attributes  by  which  they  attempt  to 
lay  a  deep  foundation  for  it  in  the  verity  of  what  God  is,  present 
this — I  may  surely  say — startling — result,  that,  while  they  set 
forth  justice  as  a  necessary  attribute  of  the  divine  nature,  so 
that  God  must  deal  with  all  men  according  to  its  requirements, 
they  represent  mercy  and  love  as  not  necessary,  but  arbitrary, 
and  what,  therefore,  may  find  their  expression  in  the  history  of 
only  some  men.  For  according  to  their  system  justice  alone  is 
expressed  in  the  history  of  all  men,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  history 
of  the  non-elect,  in  their  endurance  of  punishment ;  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  elect,  in  Christ's  enduring  it  for  them.  Mercy  and 
love  are  expressed  in  the  history  of  the  elect  alone.  Surely, 
not  to  enter  into  the  question  of  the  absolute  distinctness  of  the 
Divine  Attributes,  or  their  central  and  essential  unity,  if  any 
one  attribute  might  be  expected  to  shine  full-orbed  in  a  revela- 
tion which  testifies  that  "  God  is  love,"  that  attribute  is  love  ; 
and  feeling  this  strongly,  I  have  ventured  to  say,  that  it  would 
be  well  that  these  deep  reasoners  had  "  used  thejife  of  Christ 
more  as  their  light." 

But,  not  only  do  I  object  that  in  this  system  the  illustration 
of  the  divine  love  by  the  atonement  is  presented  in  the  history 


BY  DR.  OWEN  AND  PRESIDENT  EDWARDS.      55 

of  the  election  alone ;  what  I  feel  is,  that  so  presented the  atone- 
ment  ceases  to  reveal  that  God  is  love. 

However  little  the  thought  may  have  received  the  considera- 
tion which  its  importance  deserves,  nothing  can  be  clearer  to 
me  than  that  an  arbitrary  act  cannot  reveal  character.  We  may 
be  reconciled  to  an  act  of  which  we  see  not  the  reasons,  by 
what  we  know  otherwise  of  the  character  of  him  whose  act  it 
is  :  but  an  act  which  is  strictly  arbitrary,  or  at  least  so  far  as  we 
are  informed  arbitrary, — an  act  of  which  he  that  performs  it 
gives  us  no  other  account  than  that  he  wills  it  because  he  wills 
it,  can  never,  by  any  light  in  it,  make  the  character  of  him 
whose  act  it  is  known  to  us.  Now  the  doctrine  that  the  work 
of  Christ  has  had  reference  only  to  the  elect,  and  that  the 
grace  which  it  embodies  was  only  grace  to  them,  and  that  they 
were  elected,  and  the  non-elect  passed  over  arbitrarily,  or  at 
the  least  on  no  principle  of  choice  that  can  be  made  known  to 
us,  or  at  all  events,  that  is  made  known  to  us, — This  doctrine 
makes  the  work  of  Christ  as  presented  to  the  faith  of  human 
beings  strictly  an  arbitrary  act.  To  say  that  God  does  not 
authorise  us  to  expect  an  explanation  of  the  reasons  of  His  act- 
ing— that  He  gives  not  account  of  His  matters, — is  not  to  the 
■  point.  Be  it  so.  But  if  it  be  so,  it  does  not  the  less  follow, 
a  that  what  He  has  done  has  left  us  ignorant  of  Himself — that 
I  so  far  as  the  acting  of  which  He  gives  us  no  account  is  concerned, 
r  He_  is  to  us  the  unknown^  God._ 

That  the  transaction  has  such  an  aspect  of  grace  to  those  to 
whom  it  has  reference, — that  to  the  elect  it  is  free  unmerited 
kindness, — yea  kindness  to  enemies, — this  is  not  to  the  pur- 
pose, our  inquiry  being  as  to  the  name  and  character  of  God. 
For,  if  we  allow  our  minds  due  freedom  in  the  contemplation 
of  this  high  and  solemn  subject,  it  is  impossible  for  us  not  to 
feel,  that  however  great  the  personal  obligations  conferred  upon 
the  elect,  and  however  the  sense  of  these  may  attach  them  to 
God,  even  they  cannot  intelligently  venture  to  say  that  their 
experience  of  God — the  way  in  which  God  has  dealt  with  them 
— proves  what  God  is — in  Himself  is, — essentially  is, — when 


56  CALVINISM,  AS  TAUGHT 

the  way  in  which  He  has  dealt  with  others — the  experience  of 
others  related  to  Him  exactly  as  they  were,  and  whose  position 
was,  by  assumption  of  the  system  itself,  in  every  point  identically 
the  same  as  theirs, — has  been  so  different.  That  other  treat- 
ment is  assumed  to  be  God's  acting  as  much  as  this.  By  which 
are  we  to  judge  of  Him  ?  From  which  are  we  to  conclude 
what  God  is  ?  I  am  unable  to  see  any  way  out  here,  or  any 
escape  from  the  conclusion,  that  the  doctrine  of  an  atonement 
for  the  elect  only,  destroys  the  claim  of  the  work  of  Christ  to 
be  what  fullyreveals  and  illustrates  the  great  foundation  of  all 
religion,  that  God  is  love.  I  may  still  cling  to  that  spiritual 
instinct  in  me  which  responds  to  the  assertion  that  God  is  love, 
apart  from  all  revealed  justification  of  that  assertion.  But  in- 
stead of  being  helped  by  God's  gift  of  Christ  to  the  elect  to 
cherish  this  instinctive  faith,  all  deep  consideration  of  that  gift 
can  only  embarrass  me  j  so  that,  if  I  believe  in  it,  I  must  be 
contented  to  receive  it  as  a  mystery,  not  a  revelation  of 
God  j — a  mystery  the  explanation  of  which  I  must  endeavour, 
in  the  strength  of  my  instinctive  faith  that  God  is  love,  patiently 
to  wait  for. 

I  know  that  when  the  doctrine  of  free  grace  as  meaning 
absolute  unconditional  election,  is  presented  to  those  who  have 
not  yet  come  under  the  power  of  God's  love,  it  is  usual  to  treat 
the  repulsion  they  feel  as  a  manifestation  of  carnal  pride,  and 
their  objections  as  the  suggestions  of  a  self-sufficient  reason, 
which  refuses  to  submit  itself  to  the  authority  of  revelation.  But 
is  it  fair  to  ask  men  to  put  their  trust  in  that  God  of  whom  we  can- 
not tell  them  whether  He  loves  them  or  does  not?  in  that  Saviour 
of  whom  we  cannot  tell  them  whether  He  died  for  them  or  did 
not?  And  when  they  find  their  difficulties  so  treated  by  those  who 
not  only  are,  as  it  will  naturally  appear  to  them,  reconciled  to 
an  unconditional  election  by  having  come  to  believe  that  that 
election  has  included  themselves,  but  who  have  this  strong 
inducement  to  limit  the  atonement,  that  they  believe  that  to 
assert  that  Christ  died  for  all  men  is,  in  effect,  to  assert  that 
He  died  for  no  man  in  the  sense  in  which  His  death  for  them- 


BY  DR.  OWEN  AND  PRESIDENT  EDWARDS.       57 

selves  is  their  hope  towards  God, — is  it  strange  that  some 
degree  of  irritation,  and  even  indignation,  should  be  mani- 
fested ?  May  not  the  appearance  of  such  a  special  interest  in 
limiting  the  atonement  excusably  recall  the  words — "A  bribe 
blinds  the  eyes  of  a  judge  ?  " 

What  practically  goes  far  to  neutralise  all  this,  and  to  disarm 
the  feeling  of  irritation  which  it  awakens,  even  appearing  an 
argument  in  reply,  is,  the  loving  spirit  often  manifested  by  those 
who  urge  such  views  as  these, — a  spirit  the  very  opposite  of 
what  we  should  expect  in  the  holders  of  a  system  which  veils 
the  love  that  is  in  God  to  every  man. 

The  fact  that  much  of  this  seeming  contradiction  meets  us  is 
certain.  How  does  it  arise  ?  Although,  as  I  have  said,  their 
personal  experience  of  God  cannot  warrant  those  who,  living 
in  the  faith  of  God's  love  in  Christ  as  love  to  themselves, 
cherish  that  faith  in  connexion  with  the  faith  of  an  arbitrary 
election  and  limited  atonement  in  concluding  as  to  what  God 
is — that  He  is  love ;  yet  they  may  so  conclude, — they  may 
think  of  God  exclusively  as  He  appears  in  His  acting  towards 
themselves  ;  leaving  out  of  view  the  different  history  of  others  : 
or,  if  they  think  of  it,  regarding  it  rather  as  a  mystery,  with 
which  they  may  not  meddle,  and  which,  with  their  convictions, 
they  would  feel  it  irreverent  to  trace  out  to  logical  conclusions. 
Thus  they  will  be  found  extolling  the  love  which  is  the  plain 
meaning  of  what  they  are  experiencing  at  the  hand  of  God, 
viewed  simply  in  itself;  and,  feeling  it  as  love,  they  will 
respond  to  it  with  love ;  and  living  in  an  atmosphere  of  love, 
their  spiritual  state  will  have  its  character  determined  accord- 
ingly. And  so  dealing  with  God  as  a  living  God,  and  receiv- 
ing from  Him  day  by  day  forgiving  love, — alive  to  God,  and 
drawing  daily  for  their  own  need  out  of  the  fulness  that  is  in 
Christ,  it  comes  to  pass,  that  the  living  love  quickened  in  their 
hearts  is,  if  I  may  so  speak,  glad  to  find  in  the  darkness  that 
veils  the  subject  of  election  an  excuse  for  going  forth  freely  to 
men,  even  while  it  is  not  doctrinally  held  that  God's  love  itself, 
the  fountain  love,  goes  thus  freely  forth.     And  thus  a  contra- 


58  CALVINISM,  AS  TAUGHT 

diction  is  allowed  to  exist  between  the  faith  of  the  head  and 
the  love  of  the  heart ;  and  in  spite  of  their  theology,  the  men 
"  who  love  God  much  because  much  is  forgiven  them "  love 
men  much  also,  and  are  thankful  to  devote  themselves,  under 
the  power  of  that  love,  to  bringing  others  into  the  fellowship  ot 
that  love.  In  all  this,  conscience,  testifying  that  love  is  the 
fulfilling  of  the  law,  helps  them  greatly ;  and  also  the  bearing 
and  general  impression  of  the  Scriptures,  which  even  the  mis- 
understanding of  many  important  texts  does  not  neutralise :  and 
thus  a  Brainerd,  holding  as  his  creed  that  Christ  died  only  for 
an  unknown  few,  is  seen  yearning  over  every  human  being  he 
meets,  desiring  that  individual  human  being's  salvation  with  an 
intenseness  of  love  that  we  feel  would  be  content  to  die  for 
him  that  he  should  live  :  for  no  man  ever  laboured  for  the  sal- 
vation of  others,  the  record  of  whose  labours  impresses  us  more 
deeply  with  this  conviction. 

In  Brainerd's  case  indeed,  as  also  in  the  case  of  his  master 
Edwards,  this  contradiction  between  the  faith  of  the  head  and 
the  love  of  the  heart,  is  the  more  remarkable,  in  that  that  faith 
was  not  taken  up  blindly,  or  without  much  reasoning  and 
weighing  of  all  that  it  involved.  How  marvellous  it  appears 
that  such  reasoners  did  not  give  to  their  understandings  the 
help  that  they  might  have  found  in  their  own  spiritual  con- 
sciousness, and  make,  so  to  speak,  an  axiom  of  the  love  to  man 
that  was  in  their  own  hearts,  and  reason  from  it,  as  a  simple 
uneducated  man  did,  who,  when  the  doctrine  of  the  universality 
of  the  atonement  was  first  introduced  to  the  attention  of  a 
prayer  and  fellowship  meeting  of  which  he  was  a  member,  when 
others  were  arguing  against  it,  said,  "  I  cannot  refuse  it,  for 
I  feel  that  when  I  have  most  of  the  spirit  of  Christ  in  me  I  feel 
most  love  to  all  men ;  and  I  cannot  believe  that  the  spirit  of 
Christ  would  move  me  to  love  all  men  if  Christ  did  not  love 
all  men  Himself." 

II.  The  limitation  of  the  reference  of  the  atonement  to  an  J 
election  from  among  men,  and  the  consequences  involved  in  I 
that  limitation,   must  be    regarded  as  bringing  into   question  / 


BY  DR.  OWEN  AND  PRESIDENT  EDWARDS.      59 

that  conception  of  the  nature  of  the  atonement,  which,  being 
consistently  followed  out,  has  such  results.  Another  result  of 
that  conception  of  the  nature  of  the  atonement,  not  less 
conclusive  as  an  argument  against  it,  is  the  substitution  of 
legal  standing  for  a  filial  standing  as  the  gift  of  God  to  men 
Christ. 

"When  the  fulness  of  the  time  was  come,  God  sent  forth 
His  Son,  made  of  a  woman,  made  under  the  law,  to  redeem 
them  that  were  under  the  law,  that  we  might  receive  the  adoption 
of  sons."     Gal.  iv.  4,  5.     Therefore,  when  we  contemplate  the 
Son  of  God,  in  our   nature,  dealing  on  our  behalf  with  the 
condemnation  of  sin,  and  the  demand,  for  righteousness,  which 
are  in  the  law,  we  are  to  understand  that  He  is  not   thus 
honouring  in  humanity  the   Law  of  God   for  the  purpose  of 
giving  us  a  perfect  Jegal  standing  as  under  the  law,  but  for  the 
purpose  of  taking  us  from  under  the  law,  and  placing  us  under 
grace, — redeeming  us  that  we  may  receive  the  adoption  of  sons. 
So  that  not  a  legal  standing,  however  high  or  perfect,  but  a 
filial  standing,  is  that  which  is  given  to  us  in  Christ.     But  the 
purpose  of  giving  a  title  to  a  legal  confidence,  and  that  of 
quickening  with  a  filial  confidence,  are  manifestly  different ; 
and,  the  latter  being  recognised  as  that  in  the  contemplation  / 
of  which  the  Father  sent  the  Son  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  I 
world,  we  must  conclude  that  that  conception  of  the  nature  of/ 
the  atonement  which  has  led  to  the  substitution  of  the  former/ 
in  men's  thoughts,  cannot  be  the  true  conception. 

President  Edwards  represents  the  righteousness  of  Christ  as 
a  perfect  obedience, — yet  not  perfected  until  rendered  as 
obedience  unto  death  ;  and  he  enters  into  a  full  detail  of  all 
the  forms  or  aspects  of  law  under  which  Christ  came,  and  the 
demand  of  which  He  fully  met ;  and  God's  acceptance  of  this 
perfect  obedience  he  calls,  the  Father's  justification  of  Christ ; 
and  this  he  says  was  in  the  Father's  raising  Him  from  the  dead; 
and  in  this  justification  is  it  that  the  elect  are  interested,  and 
into  the  communion  of  which  they  enter  by  faith ;  and  this 
perfect  obedience  it  is  that  is  imputed  to  them,  and   to  the 


less      / 


6o 


CALVINISM,  AS  TAUGHT 


\J 


reward  of  which  they  are  entitled.  In  all  this,  attention  is 
fixed  upon  the  obedience  of  Christ  as  the  fulfilling  of  a  law, 
and  the  life  of  sonship,  in  which  this  fulfilment  has  taken  place, 
is  left  out  of  view.  But  that  life  of  sonship  is,  in  reality,  what 
ought  to  be  prominent ;  and  the  proper  value  of  that  fulfilment 
of  the  law,  besides  the  honour  which  it  accords  to  the  law,  is, 
that  it  is  a  demonstration  of  the  virtue  and  power  which  are  in 
sonship.  For  the  prospective  relation  of  men  to  that  fulfil- 
ment, is,  not  that  they  are  to  receive  eternal  blessedness  as  the 
reward  due  to  it,  but  that  God's  acceptance  of  it  as  a  perfect 
righteousness  in  humanity  is  a  justification  of  humanity  in  the 
person  of  Christ,  on  the  ground  of  which  that  life  of  sonship, 
in  which  this  glory  has  been  given  to  God  in  humanity,  may  be 
given  to  men  in  the  Son  of  God. 

A  work  of  infinite  excellence  performed  by  Christ  as  the 
representative  of  men,  and  men  invested  with  its  excellence, 
and  clothed  with  its  worthiness  in  God's  eyes,  and  rewarded 
accordingly,  is  a  thought  that  has  had  much  acceptance. 
Surely  to  bestow  on  us  in  Christ  the  life  that  has  taken  out- 
ward form  in  that  work,  is  at  once  a  more  natural,  and  a  far 
higher  result  of  that  work ; — a  far  higher  reward  to  Christ,  and 
a  far  higher  gift  to  us  :  as  it  is  also  a  higher  glory  to  God  in  us 
and  so  a  higher  glory  to  God  in  Christ,  through  whom  there  is 
that  glory  to  God  is  us.  "  For  what  the  law  could  not  do,  in 
that  it  was  weak  through  the  flesh,  God  sending  His  Son  in 
the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  and  as  a  sacrifice  for  sin,  condemned 
sin  in  the  flesh  ;  that  the  righteousness  of  the  law  might  be 
fulfilled  in  us,  who  walk  not  after  the  flesh,  but  after  the  spirit," 
— that  is,  the  spirit  of  the  Son,  for  the  root  idea  here  is  that 
conveyed  by  the  word  "Son."  For  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  the 
life  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus — viz.,  sonship — makes  us  "free  from 
the  law  of  sin  and  death." 

Dr.  Chalmers  dwells  much  on  the  legal  standing  given  in 
Christ,  as  meeting,  by  its  retrospective  and  prospective  bear- 
ing, all  the  need  of  the  awakened  sinner ;  and,  in  connection 
with  this,  has  some  very  striking  remarks  on  what  he  calls 


BY  DR.  OWEN  AND  PRESIDENT  EDWARDS.       6l 


"  natural  legalism/'  as  a  source  of  difficulty  to  men  in  receiving 
the  Gospel,  in  addition  to  natural  pride,  and  one  which  he 
thinks  ministers  of  the  Gospel  have  not  sufficiently  considered, 
or  recognised,  in  dealing  with  the  consciences  of  men.  These 
remarks  are,  I  believe,  just.  I  believe  that  difficulties  have 
often  their  root  in  conscience,  which  are  ignorantly  and  rashly 
referred  to  pride ;  and  I  also  believe  that  Dr.  Chalmers  is 
historically  justified  in  saying,  that  such  a  standing  as  he  con- 
ceives we  are  called  to  take,  in  virtue  of  the  imputation  of  our 
sins  to  Christ,  and  of  His  righteousness  to  us,  will  meet  the 
demands  of  conscience  to  a  certain  extent  awakened  only  : 
not  of  conscience  fully  awakened.  This  is  true,  inasmuch  as 
conscience  fully  awakened  may  be  expected  to  demand,  in 
relation  to  the  righteousness  of  the  law,  that  which  God  has 
contemplated  \  which  we  have  just  seen  has  been  "  that  the 
righteousness  of  the  law  might  be  fulfilled  in  us  ;" — but  I  say 
this  rather  in  reference  to  that  other  aspect  of  the  fulfilment 
of  God's  purpose ;  viz.,  "  that  we  should  receive  the  adoption 
of  sons;" —  in  relation  to  which  I  believe  there  is  such  a 
response  in  conscience  that  one  is  justified  in  saying,  that 
conscience  is  not  fully  awakened  in  us  who  are  God's  offspring, 
until  the  orphan  condition  to  which  sin  has  reduced  us  is 
revealed  in  us,  and  the  cry  arises  in  spirit,  if  not  in  form  of 
words,  "  Shew  us  the  Father,  and  it  sufficeth  us." 

In  the  chapter  of  Dr.  Chalmers'  Institutes,  to  which  I  am 
now  referring,  that  "  on  the  satisfaction  that  had  to  be  rendered 
to  the  truth  and  justice  of  God,  ere  that  sinners  could  be 
readmitted  into  favour,"  there  is  much  important  elucidation  of 
the  fact,  that  it  is  not  as  a  Father,  but  as  a  Judge,  that  God  is 
thought  of  by  awakened  sinners  ; — from  which  Tie*  justly  argues, 
that  there  is  both  a  departure  from  the  truth  of  things,  and  an 
embarrassing  result  to  the  awakened  sinner  in  not  duly 
acknowledging  that  voice  of  conscience  which  causes  so  much 
terror,  and  in,  as  he  says,  "  keeping  the  divine  jurisprudence 
out  of  sight,"  and  "  contemplating  the  relation  between  God 
and  man  simply  as  a  family  relation."     Those  who  do  so,  he 


y- 


62  CALVINISM,.  AS  TAUGHT 

designates  as  "  the  advocates  of  a  meagre  and  sentimental 
piety."  When  any  thus  sink  the  Lawgiver  in  the  Father,  they 
surely  err.  But.  on  the  other  hand,  if  any  think  the  idea  of 
the  Lawgiver  the  higher  and  more  root  idea  they  also  err. 
Let  us  take  the  warning  given,  not  "  to  keep  the  divine  juris- 
prudence out  of  sight ;"  but  let  us  guard  also  against  awaken- 
ings which  do  not  reach  to  the  depths  of  man's  being  :  neither 
prepare  for  that  Gospel  which  comes  from  the  depths  of  the 
heart  of  the  Father.  It  must  ever  be  remembered,  that,  while 
the  Gospel  recognises  the  law,  and  honours  the  law,  it 
raises  us  above  the  law ;  while,  as  to  the  very  point  of 
these  two  characters  of  God,  viz.,  the  Lawgiver  and  the  Father, 
we  know  that  it  is  only  by  the  revelation  of  the  Father  that  God 
succeeds  in  realising  the  will  of  the  Lawgiver  in  men.  How 
much  more  can  He  thus  alone  realise  the  longings  of  the 
Father's  heart ! 

And  let  us  weigh  well  this  question,  "  How  much  more 
could  God  thus  alone  realise  in  us  the  longings  of  His  heart 
as  our  Father?"  For  that  the  atonement  really  contemplated 
the  realizing  of  these  longings,  and  should  be  seen  by  us  in  its 
relation  to  these  longings,  this  is  what  is  not  understood  when 
the  legal  perfection  of  Christ's  righteousness  is  thus  abstracted 
from  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  the  life  of  sonship  in  Christ  Jesus, 
which  took  outward  form  in  that  righteousness,  and  from  the 
revelation  of  the  Father,  which  in  being  perfect  sonship,  it 
presents  to  faith.  If  that  obedience  were  not,  in  its  inner 
\  aspect,  and  in  its  nature,  sonship^,— if  it  were  not  a  revelation 
:  of  the  Father,  its  legal  perfection,  had  such  perfection  been  in 
that  case  possible,  would  have  availed  little  to  us,  who  were 
to  be  redeemed  from  under  the  law  that  we  might  receive  the 
adoption  of  sons. 

Therefore  was  our  Lord  ever  careful  to  keep  before  the 
minds  of  the  disciples,  that,  in  that  perfect  obedience  to  the 
will  of  God  which  they  saw  in  Him,  they  were  contemplating 
the  doing  of  the  will  of  the  Father  by  the  Son.  For  in  His 
Fathers  name  was  He  come  to  them.     Had  it  been  otherwise, 


BY  DR.  OWEN  AND  PRESIDENT  EDWARDS.      63 

Christ  could  not  have  said  "  He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen 
the  Father."  A  servant  may  make  us  acquainted  with  his 
master ;  a  subject  may  make  us  to  know  the  lawgiver  and  king 
to  whom  he  owes  allegiance  ;  the  Son  alone  could  reveal  the 
Father.  "  No  man  knoweth  the  Father  save  the  Son,  and  he 
to  whom  the  Son  revealeth  Him." 

I  have  urged  above,  that  the  limitation  of  the  atonement 
renders  the  grace  of  God  in  the  gift  of  Christ  no  longer  a 
revelation  of  the  name  of  God, — that  He  is  love.  I  say  now, 
that  the  righteousness  of  Christ  being  contemplated  as  what 
was  intended  to  give  us  a  legal  standing  as  righteous  through 
its  imputation  to  us,  has,  if  not  as  a  necessary  consequence,  at 
all  events  as  a  matter  of  fact,  marred  the  efficiency  of  the  work 
of  Christ  as  in  itself  a  revelation  of  the  Father  by  the  Son.  I 
mean,  that  those  who,  in  looking  at  Christ  as  fulfilling  all 
righteousness,  have  contemplated  Him  as  employed  in  pro- 
viding a  legal  righteousness  for  us,  have  not  been  in  the  way  of 
receiving  that  knowledge  of  God  which  they  would  have 
received,  if  their  contemplation  of  Christ  had  been  determined 
by  the  faith  of  that  word,  "  He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen 
the  Father."  Thus  it  has  come  to  pass,  that  our  Lord  has  been 
contemplated  by  them  as  fulfilling  the  law  of  love  towards  all 
men,  and  yet  that  they  have  not  recognised  His  doing  so  as 
the  revelation  of  God's  love  to  all  men.  Edwards,  in  his 
enumeration  of  the  elements  of  Christ's  righteousness,  men- 
tions those  virtues  which  more  immediately  respect  other  men, 
and  these  under  the  two  heads  of  meekness  and  love ; 
and,  in  illustration  of  the  love  to  men  which  He  mani- 
fested, he  says,  "  Christ's  love  to  men  that  He  shewed  when 
upon  earth,  and  especially  in  going  through  His  last  sufferings, 
and  offering  up  his  life  and  soul  under  these  sufferings, 
which  was  His  greatest  act  of  love,  was  far  beyond  all  parallel." 
This  as  a  part  of  Christ's  righteousness,  is  clearly  here  love  to 
men  as  men  \  not  love  to  the  elect  as  the  elect.  The  specify- 
ing, as  illustrating  His  love  to  men,  those  sufferings  of  Christ, 
and  that  offering  up  of  His  life  and  soul,  which  the  system 


/W* 


64  CALVINISM,  AS  TAUGHT,  ETC. 

assumes  had  reference  to  the  elect  only,  is  indeed  a  manifest 
contradiction  ;  but  it  seems  to  have  arisen  from  his  looking  at 
the  righteousness  of  Christ  as  the  meeting  of  the  demand  for 
righteousness  which  the  law  makes  on  man,  and  not  as  the 
revelation  of  the  heart  of  the  Father  by  the  Son.  ForJEflyards 
did  not  doubt  that  the  righteousness  which  Christ  fulfilled,  and 
with  which,  by  imputation,  believers  are  clothed,  included  love 
to  all  men  ;  —  any  more  than  that  the  example  which  He 
left  for  the  guidance  of  His  followers,  was  that  of  love  to 
all  men.  But  the  legal  reference  to  man  in  which  alone  the 
atonement  has  been,  viewed,  nas  caused  that  neither  Christ's 
sufferings  for  our  sins,  nor  His  own  righteousness,  reveal  any- 
thing of  God  by  what  they  are  in  themselves  beyond  what  the 
law_. testifies  ; — being,  simply,  the  meeting  of  the  demands  of 
the  law  j  the  former  an  awful,  the  latter  a  glorious  seal  put  to 
the~Taw  by  the  Son  of  God,  and  no  more. 

Justification  by  faith  is  so  closely  related  to  that  work  of 
Christ  which  the  faith  that  justifies  apprehends,  that  an  error 
in  regard  to  the  nature  of  the  atonement  must  affect  that 
doctrine.  But  there  will  be  some  advantage  in  postponing  the 
consideration  of  the  teaching  of  the  earlier  Calvinists  on  this 
subject,  so  far  as  the  object  of  this  volume  calls  for  the  con- 
sideration of  it,  until  I  have  first  directed  attention  to  the 
great  modification  which  Calvinism,  as  taught  by  the  theolo- 
gical school  to  which  I  have  referred  above,  has  recently 
undergone. 


65 


CHAPTER   IV. 

CALVINISM,    AS    RECENTLY    MODIFIED. 

/^ALVINISM,  as  recently  modified,  differs  from  the  earlier 

Calvinism  in  these  points: — First,  as  to  the  reference  of  the  (jj 
atonement,  which  is  held  to  have  been  for  all  men,  and  not  for 
the  elect  only.  Secondly,  as  to  the  need-be  for  an  atonement,  /y 
which  is  not  regarded  as  arising  out  of  the  demands  of  distri- 
butive and  individual  justice,  requiring  that  each  man  should 
receive  his  due  desert,  according  to  an  eternal  necessity  in  the 
divine  nature,  as  maintained  by  Owen  and  Edwards  :  but  is 
held  to  arise  out  of  the  demands  of  rectoral  and  public  justice, 
which  necessitate  God,  as  the  moral  governor  of  the  universe, 
if  He  extend  mercy  to  sinners,  to  do  so  only  in  a  way  that  will 
preserve  inviolate  the  interests  of  His  moral  government. 
Thirdly,  as  to  the  nature  of  the  atonement — Christ's  suffering 
for  our  sins  not  being  held  to  be  endurance,  on  the  part  of  the 
Saviour,  of  the  same  punishment,  or  of  punishment  equivalent 
in  amount  of  suffering,  with  that  to  which  those  for  whom  He 
suffered  were  exposed,  but  to  be  the  substitution  of  other  suffer- 
ings for  the  threatened  punishment,  which  substituted  sufferings 
were  equivalent  in  reference  to  the  result  in  relation  to  God's 
moral  government ; — and  Christ's  meritorious  obedience  not 
being  held  to  be  the  fulfilling  of  the  law  in  our  room  and  stead, 
so  as  to  provide  us  with  a  righteousness  to  be  imputed  to  us, 
investing  us  with  a  right  to  the  reward  of  righteousness, — but  a 
moral  excellence  giving  amoral  virtue  to  the  atonement  whereby 


a> 


© 


66  CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 

it  is  made  a  fit  ground  on  which  may  be  rested  all  acts  of  grace 
and  clemency  towards  sinners,  and  all  bestowal  of  favours  upon 
them.  Fourthly,  as  to  the  results  of  the  atonement,  that  it 
does  not  of  itself,  and  by  its  own  nature,  secure  salvation  to 
any,  but  only  is  an  adequate  provision  for  the  salvation  of  all, 
free  to  all,  effectual  to  salvation  in  the  case  of  those  who  are 
disposed  by  the  sovereign  grace  of  God  to  avail  themselves 
of  it. 

These  points  of  difference  involve  others  as  implied  in  them. 
Thus  the  idea  of  imputation  of  guilt  and  righteousness,  viz.,  of 
our  guilt  to  Christ,  and  of  Christ's  righteousness  to  us,  as  this 
imputation  was  held  by  Owen  and  Edwards,  is  rejected  as 
untenable  ; — "  Guilt  and  merit  not  being  transferable, — but  only 
their  consequences."  (Payne,  254.)  The  idea  of  a  legal  claim 
to  salvation,  which  we  have  just  seen  commended  as  the  full 
meeting  of  the  instinctive  legalism  of  the  human  heart,  is  rejected 
as  destroying  the  gracious  character  of  the  gospel  dispensation ; 
and,  most  important  of  all — the  relation  of  the  atonement  to  the 
divinity  of  Christ,  is  altogether  differently  conceived  of;  for 
whereas,  in  the  earlier  Calvinism,  the  divinity  of  the  Saviour  is 
contemplated  as  making  possible  infinitely  great  sufferings 
endured  in  time, — the  needed  substitute  for  sufferings  that 
would  have  been  infinite  in  that  they  would  have  been  eternal, 
— on  this  system  the  divinity  of  Christ  is  regarded  as  giving 
infinite  value  to  any  suffering  of  His ;  so  that  the  value  of  the 
sufferings  would  be  infinitely  great  though  its  amount  were 
infinitely  small. 

The  assumed  advantages  of  this  system  as  a  modification  of 
the  earlier  Calvinism  are  chiefly  these, — First,  as  to  the  extent 
of  the.  atonement.  To  teach  that  Christ  died  for  all  is  con- 
sonant with  the  most  obvious  meaning  of  the  language  of  the 
inspired  writers, — which  cannot  be  brought  to  utter  a  limited 
atonement  without  much  forcing.  While,  besides,  an  universal 
atonement  is  an  adequate,  and  the  only  adequate  foundation  for 
the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  as  good  news  of  salvation  to  all ; 
and  they  dwell  with  much  force  on  the  kind  of  mental  reserva- 


CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED.  67 

tion  which  the  older  system  ascribes  to  God  in  inviting  all  to 
partake  in  what  is  only  prepared  for  some,  because  the  some 
only  will  accept  the  invitation.  Secondly,  as  to  the  need-be  for 
atonement.  A  necessity  for  an  atonement  arising  out  of  rectoral 
or  public  justice,  is  felt  less  repulsive  than  one  that  implies  a 
demand  in  the  divine  nature  for  a  certain  amount  of  suffering  as 
the  punishment  of  a  certain  amount  of  sin.  Thirdly,  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  atonement.  All  that  men  have  revolted  from  in 
the  idea  of  the  Son  of  God  being  actually  in  His  Father's  eyes 
as  a  criminal  through  imputation  of  man's  sin,  and  being 
punished  accordingly,  is  thought  to  be  avoided ;  as  well  as  all 
that  is  of  the  nature  of  legal  fiction  in  imputation  of  guilt  to  an 
innocent  being,  or  of  righteousness  to  a  guilty  being.  Fourthly, 
as  to  the  results  of  the  atonement.  They  dwell  largely  on  the 
manifestation  of  the  divine  character,  and  on  the  vindication  of 
the  divine  judgment  on  sin,  as  well  as  of  the  divine  sovereignty 
in  the  salvation  of  those  who  are  saved, — seeing  that  those  who 
perish,  perish,  not  because  a  salvation  was  not  provided  for 
them,  but  because  they  would  not  accept  of  it.  Owen  had  said 
in  a  passage  already  quoted,  that  "  to  affirm  Christ  to  die  for  all  \ , 
men,  is  the  readiest  way  to  prove  that  He  died  for  no  man  in  the 
sense  Christians  have  hitherto  believed,  and  to  hurry  poor  souls 
into  the  bottom  of  Socinian  blasphemies."  Here,  that  Christ 
died  for  all  men  is  maintained  ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  "  the 
objections  of  the  Socinian  "to  "  redemption  through  the  merits 
of  Christ,"  are  held  to  be  "  all  silenced." — '*'  If  he  is  not  allowed 
for  his  weapons  the  wrath  of  a  God  of  love, — the  transfer  of 
moral  character, — the  infliction  of  legal  punishment  on  the 
innocent,  his  gauntlet  can  grasp  no  other.  The  doctrine  of  a 
substitutionary  atonement  not  only  blunts,  but  breaks  and 
shivers  these  favourite  and  long  used  lances  of  Socinianism." 
(Jenkyn,  317.)  But  doubtless,  Owen  would  regard  this  as  a 
victory  gained  only  by  concessions ; — for  Owen  would  say,  that 
the  doctrine  that  Christ  died  for  all  men  is  combined  with  the 
distinct  concession,  "  that  He  died  for  no  man  in  the  sense  that 
Christians  have  hitherto  believed ;" — and  he  would  be  entitled 


|v 


68  CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 

so  to  reply,  at  least  in  reference  to  the  sense  attached  to  the 
word  atonement  in  the  discussions  between  himself  and 
Arminians. 

With  much  in  what  seems  to  be  the  mental  history  of  this 
modified  Calvinism  I  have  full  sympathy.  The  constraint  felt 
in  preaching  Christ  to  all,  while  believing  that  He  only  died  for 
some,  is  easily  understood ;  while,  doubtless,  Owen's  argument 
for  a  limited  atonement,  if  the  atonement  had  been  what,  in  the 
controversies  between  him  and  Arminians  it  was  on  both  sides 
assumed  to  be,  were  unanswerable  as  arguments  whatever 
Scripture  difficulties  they  might  involve.  Again,  in  the  conces- 
sions which  seems  made  to  Socinians,  on  the  subject  of  the 
untransferable  nature  of  guilt  and  merit,  and  the  difficulty  of 
assuming  that  by  a  legal  fiction  God  sees  things  other  than  as 
they  really  are,  I  concur  with  them  ;  although  I  feel  that  there 
are  important  principles  in  Edwards'  argument  on  the  substitu- 
tion of  Christ  for  us,  to  which  they  do  not  seem  to  me  to  give 
due  weight  j  and  although  the  even  stronger  language  of  Luther 
as  to  Christ's  identification  of  Himself  with  us,  instead  of 
repelling  me,  as  it  does  them,  is  to  my  mind  a  very  near 
approach  to  truth  ;  and  I  am  disposed  to  think  was  spiritually, 
though  not  intellectually,  truth  in  Him.  But. I  have  much  more 
sympathy  in  their  difficulties  than  satisfaction  in  the  wayjn 
which  they  have  dealt  with  them. 

Believing  that  Christ  died  for  all,  and  perceiving  that  the 
conceptions  of  the  nature  of  the  atonement  from  which  the 
earlier  Calvinists  reasoned,  did  indeed  imply,  if  logically  fol- 
lowed out,  that  He  only  died  for  some,  the  teachers  of  this 
modified  Calvinism  have  seemed  to  themselves  to  have  found 
a  solution  of  the  difficulty,  in  their  conception  of  rectoral  or 
public  justice  as  what  called  for  an  atonement  for  sin.  But 
surely,  rectoral  or  public  justice,  if  it  is  to  have  any  moral  basis 
— any  basis  other  than  expediency — must  rest  upon,  and  refer 
to,  distributive  or  absolute  justice.  In  other  words,  unless  there 
be  a  fightness  in  connecting  sin  with  misery,  and  righteousness 
with  blessedness,  looking  at  individual  cases  simply  in  them- 


CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 


selves,  I  cannot  see  that  there  is  a  tightness  in  connecting  them 
as  a  rule  of  moral  government.  "  An  English  judge  once  said 
to  a  criminal  before  him,  '  You  are  condemned  to  be  trans- 
ported, not  because  you  have  stolen  these  goods,  but  that  goods 
may  not  be  stolen.'  "  (Jenkyn,  175,  176.)  This  is  quoted  in 
illustration  of  the  position,  that  "  the  death  of  Christ  is  an 
honourable  ground  for  remitting  punishment,"  because  "  His 
sufferings  answer  the  same  ends  as  the  punishment  of  the  sin- 
ner." I  do  not  recognise  any  harmony  between  this  sentiment 
of  the  English  judge  and  the  voice  of  an  awakened  conscience 
on  the  subject  of  sin.  It  is  just  because  he  has  sinned  and 
deserves  punishment,  and  not  because  he  says  to  himself  that 
God  is  a  moral  governor  and  must  punish  him  to  deter  others, 
that  the  wrath  of  God  against  sin  seems  so  terrible — and  as  just 
as  terrible.  As  little  is  this  sentiment  in  harmony  with  what  the 
words  teach,  "  The  wages  of  sin  is  death."  Owen  and  Edwards 
do  not  err  in  believing,  that  the  righteousness  of  God  connects 
sin  with  misery,  as  by  a  righteous  reward,  irrespective  of  state 
reasons.  Their  error  is,  I  believe,  twofold, — concluding  as  to 
that  award  beyond  what  they  had  light  for  their  guidance, — and 
— and  this  chiefly — not  seeing  any  hope  for  the  sinner  in  the 
very  righteousness  of  God, — as  if  the  righteousness  of  God 
would  have  full  satisfaction  in  reference  to  the  unrighteous,  in 
their  being  miserable.  "  Good  and  righteous  is  the  Lord, 
therefore  will  He  teach  sinners  the  way  which  they  should 
choose." 

Rectoral  justice  so  presupposes  absolute  justice,  and  so 
throws  the  mind  back  on  that  absolute  justice,  that  the  idea  of 
an  atonement  that  will  satisfy  the  one,  though  it  might  not  the 
other,  must  be  a  delusion. 

The  recommendation  of  the  distinction  sought  to  be  drawn 
has  been,  that  it  seemed  to  harmonise  an  atonement  for  all, 
with  the  ultimate  punishment  of  those  who  do  not  accept  of  that 
atonement ; — that  is  to  say,  as  Calvinists  pressed  the  point  on 
Arminians, — the-punishment  of  many  whose  punishment  Christ 
had    previously    endured :    this    stronghold    of    Calvinism    it 


/ 


W 


^L 


70 


CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 


N^ 


seemed  to  overturn.  But  as  long  as  Christ's  sufferings  are  held 
to  be  penal,  which,  even  when  the  old  form  of  words  is  most 
departed  from,  is  the  expression  still  used,  I  cannot  see  what 
difference  it  makes,  whether  they  be  held  as  by  Owen,  to  have 
been  the  same  that  those  for  whom  He  suffered  were  obnoxious 
to ;  or  as  Baxter,  with  Grotius,  held, — equivalent ;  or  as  Dr.  Jenkyn 
holds,  "  different  in  nature,  and  kind, — in  quantity  and.  degree." 
If  they  were  penal,  then,  that  those  for  whom  He  suffered  should 
be  punished  themselves,  must  still  suggest  the  idea  sought  to 
be  avoided,  of  sin  twice  punished. 

Nor  is  the  difficulty  less  because,  not  regarding  our  sins  as 
imputed  to  Christ  in  the  sense  of  the  elder  Calvinists,  objection 
is  made  to  speaking  of  Christ  as  punished  for  our  sins :  the 
expression  being  substituted,  that  what_He  suffered  was  the 
punishment  of  our  sins.  This  distinction,  introduced  by 
Andrew  Fuller,  is  adopted  by  Dr.  Payne,  who  would  press  it 
further  than  Fuller ;  and  I  suppose  that  it  is  contemplated  by 
Dr.  Jenkyn,  when  he  says  "Christ's  sufferings  were  not  a 
punishment."  (p.  292.)  But  Dr.  Payne  recognises  our  sins  as 
imputed  to  Christ  in  the  sense  of  "  inflicting  upon  Him  the 
punishment  due  to  them"  (p.  260)  ;  and  while  Dr.  Jenkyn  at 
as  much  pains  to  bring  out  the  difference  between  what  Christ 
suffered  and  what  those  for  whom  He  suffered  were  exposed  to 
suffer,  as  Dr.  Owen  is  to  bring  out,  if  he  could,  an  identity 
(being  indeed  quite  successful  in  this,  while  Owen  is  altogether 
unsuccessful),  still  he  regards  "  made  a  sin  offering  for  us  "  (in 
2  Cor.  v.  21)  as  equivalent  to  "  made  liable  to  punishment  for 
us  "  (p.  287), — and  he  enlarges  on  Christ's  "  suffering  as  if  He 
had  been  a  sinner."  (p.  284.)  If  Christ  was  "  made  liable  to 
punishment,"  if  He  was  "  treated  as  if  He  were  a  sinner,"  that 
is,  if  God  so  treated  Him — for  the  misapprehensions  of  men  are 
nothing — then  to  say  that  He  was  not  punished  though  the 
punishment  of  our  sins  was  endured  by  Him,  however  it  is  a 
softening  of  expressions,  is  not  to  any  real  effect  so  to  modify 
the  idea  of  atonement  as  to  do  away  with  the  difficulty  of  a 
double  punishment  for  sin. 


CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED.  71 

This  distinction  between  being  punished,  and  enduring  suffer- 
ings which  are  a  punishment,  is  adopted  in  connection  with  the 
denial  of  the  imputation  of  our  guilt  to  Christ,  and  in  this  view 
is  held  to  remove  the  difficulties  of  one  class  of  objectors, — 
although  to  call  sufferings  a  punishment  while  the  sufferer  is 
not  regarded  as  punished,  involves  new  difficulties.  But,  the 
change  on  which  most  weight  is  laid,  is  in  the  view  taken  of  the 
relation  in  which  the  sufferings  endured  are  represented  as 
standing  to  the  divinity  of  the  sufferer.  That  the  personal 
dignity  of  the  Saviour  is  the  important  aspect  of  the  incarnation 
in  relation  to  the  atonement,  is  much  insisted  on.  Divinity  as 
a  capacity  for  enduring  infinite  penal  infliction,  is  an  idea  which 
is  recognised  as  rightly  offending.  Divinity  as  giving  infinite 
value  to  any  measure  of  humiliation  or  suffering  condescended 
to,  is  urged  as  what  should  recommend  itself  as  a  far  more 
worthy  conception.  How  far  removed  from  either  conception 
the  truth  of  the  case  has  been, — how  far  different  from  a  capa- 
city of  enduring  infinite  penal  infliction,  or  a  giving  infinite 
ralue  to  penal  suffering,  however  small  its  amount  has  been  the 
relation  of  the  divinity  of  Christ  to  His  sufferings  in  making 
propitiation  for  our  sins  will,  I  trust,  be  made  clear  in  the 
sequel. 

But  there  are  two  points  in  relation  to  the  sufferings  of  Christ, 
as  spoken  of  in  these  two  forms  of  Calvinism  severally,  which 
appear  to  me  deserving  of  our  special  attention,  viz.,  that  the 
language  employed  in  speaking  of  the  part  of  the  Father  in 
relation  to  these  sufferings,  is  much  the  same ; — and  that,  the 
details  specified  when  details  of  the  elements  of  suffering  are 
ventured,  are  much  the  same,  or  at  least  are  of  the  same 
nature. 

1.  The  Language  of  the  latter  Calvinists  in  speaking  of  the 
part  of  the  Father  in  relation  to  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  is  not 
essentially  different  from  that  of  those  whose  system  they  feel  it 
necessary  to  modify. 

President  Edwards  is  quoted  by  Dr.  Stroud  (who  dedicates 
his  book  to  Dr.  Pye  Smith)  as  representing  Christ  as  "  suffering 


72  CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 

a  positive  infliction  of  divine  wrath,"  which  to  teach,  he  esteems 
chargeable  with  error, — "not  to  say  absurdity."  (p.  209.) 
These  are  some  of  the  sentences  which  he  quotes.  "  Reveng- 
ing justice  then  spent  all  its  force  upon  Him  on  account  of  our 
guilt,  .  .  .  and  this  was  the  way  and  means  by  which  Christ 
stood  up  for  the  honour  of  God's  justice,  viz.,  by  thus  suffering 
its  terrible  executions :  for  when  He  had  undertaken  for  sinners, 
and  had  substituted  Himself  in  their  room,  divine  justice  could 
have  its  due  honour  no  other  way  than  by  His  suffering  its 
revenges."  Yet  Dr.  Stroud  himself  says,  "a  transition  more 
sudden  or  violent  than  that  which  took  place  from  the  seraphic 
discourses  and  devotions  of  Christ  after  the  Paschal  supper,  to 
the  horrors  of  Gethsemane,  can  scarcely  be  conceived.  That 
He  was  about  to  suffer  from  the  immediate  hand  of  God  is 
implied  by  His  prediction  to  the  apostles  on  the  way.  In  the 
absence  of  all  external  infliction,  the  cup  of  trembling  which 
was  then  presented  to  Him  by  the  Father,  and  which  He  so 
earnestly  petitioned  might  if  possible  be  withdrawn,  could  have 
been  no  other  than  the  cup  of  the  wrath  of  God,  '  the  poison 
whereof  drinketh  up  trie  spirit'"  (p.  215):  and  he  quotes  with 
approbation  from  Rambach,  a  passage  in  which  he  speaks  of 
our  Lord  as  having  "  to  suffer  all  the  floods  of  the  divine  wrath 
to  pass  over  Him,  which  would  have  overwhelmed  our  Saviour's 
human  nature,  had  not  the  divinity  within  Him  supported  it  in 
this  terrible  trial."  Dr.  Pye  Smith  says,  "  Jesus  Christ  volun- 
tarily sustained  that  which  was  the  marked  punishment  of  sin." 
(p.  35.)  "  The  tremendous  manifestations  of  God's  displeasure 
against  sin,  He  endured,  though  in  Him  was  no  sin  :  and  He 
endured  them  in  a  manner  of  which  those  unhappy  spirits  who 
shall  drink  the  fierceness  of  the  wrath  of  Almighty  God  will 
never  be  able  to  form  an  adequate  idea."  (p.  42.)  Dr.  Jenkyn 
says,  "  The  most  amazing  circumstance  connected  with  His 
death  was,  that  He  suffered  as  one  disowned,  and  reprobated, 
and  forsaken  of  God,"  &c.  (p.  284.)  "The  just  is  treated  as 
if  He  had  been  unjust,  the  Son  of  God  suffered  as  if  He  had 
been  a  transgressor."     (p.  285.)     Dr.  Payne  ("On  the  reality 


CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED.  73 

of  the  atonement")  concludes,  that  the  sufferings  of  our  Lord 
were  "  dreadful  beyond  conception,"  and  "  resulted  from  intense 
mental  suffering,  from  the  burden  of  our  guilt  which  rested  upon 
Him,  from  that  light  of  His  Father's  countenance  which  then 
suffered  a  total  eclipse,"  in  relation  to  which  he  quotes  Psalm 
lxxxviii.  4-7,  concluding  with  the  words,  "  thy  wrath  lieth  hard 
upon  me,  and  thou  hast  afflicted  me  with  all  thy  waves." 

2.  But  the  other  point  to  which  I  would  direct  attention,  is 
more  striking  still;  viz.,  the  oneness  of  character  in  the  elements 
of  suffering  which  they  specify. 

What  are  the  "  revenges  of  divine  justice,"  and  "  its  terrible 
executions,"  which  were  in  Edwards'  contemplations  when  he 
employed  those  general  expressions  which  have  exposed  him  to 
the  charge  of  error,  nay,  absurdity  ?  The  only  direct  dealing  of 
God  with  Christ  which  he  specifies  is  purely  negative  ; — "  God 
forsook  Christ  and  hid  Himself  from  Him,  and  withheld  com- 
fortable influences,  or  the  clear  ideas  of  pleasant  objects."  This 
negative  wrath,  if  the  expression  is  not  a  contradiction,  is  indeed 
represented  as  being  in  order  that  the  positive  elements  of 
suffering  present  should  act  with  unmitigated  power ;  and  what 
were  these  ?  First,  God  hid  Himself  from  Christ  "  that  He 
might  feel  the  full  burden  of  our  sins  that  was  laid  upon  Him." 
But  how  laid  upon  Him  1  "  His  having  so  clear  an  actual  view 
of  sin  and  its  hatefulness,  was  an  idea  infinitely  disagreeable 
to  the  holy  nature  of  Christ ;  and  therefore,  unless  balanced 
with  an  equal  sight  of  good  that  comes  by  that  evil,  must  have 
been  an  immensely  disagreeable  sensation  in  Christ's  soul,  or, 
which  is  the  same  thing,  immense  suffering.  .  .  .  Thus  Christ 
bore  our  sins ;  God  laid  on  Him  the  iniquities  of  us  all,  and 
.He  bare  the  burden  of  them."  Secondly,  God  thus  dealt  with 
^Christ,  that  "  He  might  suffer  God's  wrath."  But  again,  how  ? 
— "  His  suffering  wrath  consisted  more  in  the  sense  He  hacTof 
the  other  thing,  viz.,  the  dreadfulness  of  the  punishment  of  sin, 
or  the  dreadfulness  of  God's  wrath  inflicted  for  it;"  viz.,  on 
those  on  whom  it  is  inflicted.  "  Thus  Christ  was  tormented, 
not  only  in  the  fire  of  God's  wrath,  but  in  the  fire  of  our  sins ; 


* 


74  CALVINISM,  AS   RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 

and  our  sins  were  His  tormentors  ;  the  evil  and  malignant 
nature  of  sin  was  what  Christ  endured  immediately,"  i.e.,  in 
being  realised  by  Him  as  an  object  of  mental  contemplation, — 
as  well  as  more  remotely,  in  bearing  the  consequences  of  it,  i.e. 
the  sense  of  these  consequences  as  endured  by  others.  "  Thus 
Christ  suffered  what  the  damned  in  hell  do  not  suffer.  For 
they  do  not  see  the  hateful  nature  of  sin  ;  .  .  .  and  as  the  clear 
view  of  sin  in  its  hatefulness  necessarily  brought  great  suffer- 
ing on  the  holy  soul  of  Christ,  so  also  did  the  view  of  its 
punishment.  For  both  the  evil  of  sin  and  the  evil  of  punish- 
ment are  infinite  evils,  and  both  infinitely  disagreeable  to 
Christ's  nature  :  the  former  to  His  holy  nature,  or  His  nature 
as  God ; — the  latter  to  His  human  nature,  or  His  nature  as 
man.  .  .  .  Christ's  love  brought  His  elect  infinitely  near  to 
Him  in  that  great  act  and  suffering  wherein  He  specially  stood 
for  them,  and  was  substituted  in  their  stead  ]  and  His  love  and 
pity  fixed  the  idea  of  them  in  His  mind,  as  if  He  had  really 
been  they ;  and  fixed  their  calamity  in  His  mind,  as  though  it 
really  was  His.  A  very  strong  and  lively  pity  towards  the 
miserable,  tends  to  make  their  case  ours ;  as  in  other  respects, 
so  in  this  in  particular,  as  it  doth  in  our  idea  place  us  in  their 
stead,  under  their  misery,  ...  as  it  were  feeling  it  for  them, 
actually  suffering  it  in  their  stead  by  strong  sympathy."  On 
Satisfaction  for  Sin,  §  9,  1. 

I  am  quite  sensible  of  the  injustice  done  to  the  remarkable 
passage  from  which  I  quote,  by  thus  curtailing  it.  But  I  have 
given  enough  of  it  for  my  purpose  in  quoting  it ;  viz.,  to  show 
that,  however  strong  and  startling  Edwards'  general  expressions 
as  to  Christ's  being,  in  consequence  of  the  imputation  of  our 
guilt,  subjected  to  "the  revenges  of  divine  justice,"  there  is, 
when  he  explains  himself,  nothing  of  the  nature  of  legal  fiction 
in  his  conception  of  the  way  in.  which  Christ  bore  llTe'lTui'den  of 
our  sins  ;  as  neither  is  there  anything  of  the  nature  of  the  actual 
going  forth  of  divine  wrath  against  the  holy  one,  because  of  His 
standing  in  the  room  of  sinners,  in  what  is  called  "  His  endur- 
ance of  wrath  ; "  but  that  the  whole  suffering  conceived  of,  is 


CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED.  75 

resolved  into  a  vivid  perception  and  realisation  of  the  hateful- 
ness  of  sin,  and  of  the  greatness  of  the  wrath  to  which  it  has 
exposed  sinners ;  these  two  ideas  affecting  our  Lord  in  the 
measure  of  His  infinite  holiness  and  love.  So  strictly  has 
Edwards,  in  endeavouring  to  imagine  ingredients  to  fill  a  full 
cup  of  suffering,  adhered  to  the  limits  which  he  recognises  in 
saying  that  "  Christ  suffered  the  wrath  of  God  for  men's  sins  in 
such  a  way  as  He  was  capable  of,  being  an  infinitely  holy 
person,  who  knew  that  God  was  not  angry  with  Him  personally, 
knew  that  God  did  not  hate  Him,  but  infinitely  loved  Him." 
It  is,  indeed,  a  great  relief,  to  see  this  great  and  good  man, 
while  dealing  so  much  in  the  language  of  what  seems  legal 
fiction  in  that  high  region  in  which  fiction  can  have  no  place, 
when  he  comes  to  explain  the  facts  of  Christ's  actual  experience, 
as  they  were  conceived  of  by  him,  saying  nothing  that  implied, 
either  that  God  looked  on  Christ  in  wrath,  or  that  Christ  felt  as 
if  He  did.  And,  when  I  use  the  word  "  explain,"  I  am  very 
far  indeed  from  intending  to  suggest  any  attempt  to  soften,  or 
explain  away.  Edwards  is  in  no  way  attempting  to  make  his 
doctrine  less  obnoxious  :  on  the  contrary,  as  in  the  choice  of 
general  expressions  he  selects  the  most  extreme,  so  in  setting 
forth  the  elements  of  the  Saviour's  sufferings,  he  is  making 
out  the  strongest  case  that  he  can,  within  the  limit  which  he  has 
recognised. 

The  teaching  that  substitutes,  "  enduring  the  punishment  of 
our  sins,"  for,  "  being  punished  for  our  sins,"  has  still  to  seek 
for  elements  of  penal  suffering ; — and  the  same  relief  which  is 
felt  in  interpreting  the  general  expressions  of  Edwards  in  refer- 
ence to  the  divine  wrath  which  Christ  suffered,  by  the  details  of 
Christ's  actual  sufferings  which  he  specifies,  is  again  experienced 
in  passing  from  the  general  expressions  of  the  modified  Calvinism 
to  the  illustrations  of  these  which  are  offered.  The  "  wrath," 
or  "  malediction,"  as  he  more  frequently  expresses  it,  which  Dr. 
Stroud  contemplates,  is  "  the  loss  for  a  time  of  all  sense  of 
God's  friendship,  all  enjoyment  of  His  communion"  (p.  192), — 
which,  the  consciousness  of  sinlessness  remaining,  and  there  being 


> 


76  CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 

no  ?nisconception  assumed  as  to  the  Fathers  true  estimate  of  Him 
as  the  holy  one  of  God,  although  it  would  be  suffering,  could 
with  no  propriety  be  called  malediction  and  wrath.  Dr.  Pye 
Smith's  specification  of  the  elements  of  suffering,  is  strikingly 
like  that  of  President  Edwards,  both  in  the  limit  recognised, 
"  He  suffered  in  such  a  manner  as  a  being  perfectly  holy  could 
suffer"  (p.  41),  and  in  the  moral  nature  assigned  to  the  suffer- 
ing, as  arising  from  holiness  and  love  realising  the  evil  of  sin, 
and  intensely  interested  in  those  who  were  its  victims,  (p.  42.) 
The  elements  which  Dr.  Payne  finds  in  our  Lord's  sufferings 
are  also  intense  views  of  the  evil  of  sin,  combined  with  the 
withholding  of  counter-balancing  support,  (p.  181.)  He  speaks 
indeed  of  the  "  penal  elements  "  in  our  Lord's  cup  of  suffering, 
and  recognises  the  withholding  of  those  manifestations  of  su- 
preme complacency  in  His  character  and  conduct  which  He  had 
previously  enjoyed,  as  in  itself  a  most  distressing  testimony  of 
the  divine  anger  against  sin,  and  probably  implied  in  the 
language  of  the  prophet,  "  It  pleased  the  Lord  to  bruise  Him." 
This  thought  he  adopts  from  Dr.  Dwight,  but  he  proceeds  to 
object  to  Dr.  Dwight's  representing  the  hidings  of  God's  face  as 
implying  "  the  suffering  of  His  hatred  and  contempt,"  saying, 
"  No  sober  minded  man  can  admit  this.  The  fact  of  the  case 
most  unquestionably  is,  that  the  Father  did  not  despise  Him, — 
was  not  angry  with  Him  when  He  hung  on  the  cross.  Never, 
indeed,  did  He  regard  Him  with  such  ineffable  complacency. 
How  then  could  He  manifest  that  displeasure  which  did  not 
exist?  "  (p.  182.)  Dr.  Jenkyn,  intending  to  indicate  a  mitiga- 
tion of  Christ's  sufferings,  and  speaking  rather  of  what  they 
were  not  than  of  what  they  were,  says — "His  sufferings  were 
not  a  punishment.  His  consciousness  of  personal  rectitude, 
and  His  confidence  in  His  father,  never  forsook  Him.  In  the 
darkest  hour  of  His  anguish,  His  assurance  of  God's  approba- 
tion and  acceptance  was  in  the  highest  exercise — '  Father,'  He 
said,  '  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  My  spirit.'  "     (p.  292.) 

My  quotations  are  necessarily  brief,  but  the  references  will 
guide  those  who  may  be  disposed  to  verify  the  correctness  of 


CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED.  77 

the  impressions  which  these  quotations  convey.     What  remains 
with  me,  after  fully  weighing  all  that  either  school  of  Calvin- 
ists  have  felt  warranted  to  present  to  our  faith   in   picturing 
the  actual  elements  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  is  the  convic- 
tion, that  they  have  not  ventured  to  assume  anything  as  to  the 
actual  consciousness  of  Christ  in  suffering,  or  as  to  the  actual 
mind  of  the  Father  towards  Him,  while  it  pleased  the  Father 
so  to  bruise  Him,  or  as  to  His  own  apprehension  of  the  light 
in  which  His  Father  saw  Him,  in  His  dealing  with  the  Father, 
and  the  Father's  dealing  with  Him  in  reference  to  our  sins, 
which  at  all  accords,  either  with  the  older  idea  of  guilt  being 
imputed  to  Him,  and  therefore  wrath  going  forth  upon  Him— 
the  wrath  due  to  guilt — or,  with  the  new  idea  of  His  being 
treated  as  if  He  were  guilty,  as  if  He  were  a  transgressor. 
Elements  of  great  sufferings  are  specified, — by  some  with  more 
definiteness  than  by  others  ;  the  former  writers  also  giving  more 
prominence  to   the  Saviour's  sense  of  the  eternal  misery  to 
which  sin  had  subjected  sinners ; — the  latter,  more  to  His  sense 
of  the  sin  itself; — elements  of  suffering  are  specified,  all  of 
them  at  least  conceivable, —  of  suffering  which  some  call  in- 
finitely, others  indefinitely  great.     But  however  these  accord, 
and  they  do,  so  far  as  they  go,  accord  with  the  idea  of  sacri- 
ficial  atoning  suffering,   they  do    not   accord   with   the  penal 
character  ascribed  to  them.     Yet  this  penal  character  ascribed 
to  these   sufferings,    without   necessity  as   respects   their   own 
nature, — I   believe  in   contradiction  to  their  own   nature, — is 
that  very  thing  which  had  originated  the  difficulty  as  to  the 
universality  of  the  atonement ;  and,  as  appears  to  me,  leaves  it 
a  difficulty  on  the  system  of  the  modern,  as  much  as  of  the 
elder  Calvinists. 

But,  my  objection  to  the  conception  of  rectoral  or  public 
justice,  as  that  in  which  the  necessity  for  the  atonement 
has  originated,  is  much  more  serious  than  its  inadequacy 
to  remove  difficulties  as  to  the  universality  of  the  atonement. 
My  great  objection  is  that,  equally  with  the  view  for  which 
it   is   offered   as   a   substitute,    it   takes   a   limited, — and, — in 


V 


?8  CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 

respect  of  the  important  elements  which  it  leaves  out  of  ac- 
count,— an  erroneous  view  of  that  which  the  atonement  was 
intended  to  accomplish. 

If  my  readers  have  entered  into  my  objections  to  the  mere 
legal  character  of  the  atonement,  as  we  see  it  in  the  system  of 
the  elder  Calvinists,  they  will  see  that  in  respect  of  these  objec- 
tions, the  modified  Calvinism  has  no  advantage.  An  atone- 
ment which  has  conferred  on  those  with  reference  to  whom 
it  was  made  a  legal  standing  of  innocence,  as  having  had 
their  guilt  already  punished,  and  of  righteousness  as  having 
a  righteousness  already  wrought  out  for  them ;  and  an  atone- 
ment whose  result  is  merely  to  lay  a  foundation~on~wh1cri 
God  may  proceed  to  pardon  sin,  and  to  treat  as  righteous, 
are  alike  purely  Jesra?  atonements,  that  is,  atonements,  the 
whole  character  of  which  is  determined  by  man's  relation  to  the 
divine  law. 

Dr.  Wardlaw  asks. — "  Man  having  sinned,  what  is  to  be 
done  ?  The  unconditional  absolution  of  the  transgressor  would 
be  a  flagrant  outrage  on  the  claims  of  retributive  justice; — his 
annihilation  would  be  a  tacit  evasion  of  these  claims ; — while, 
if  the  law  has  its  course,  and  the  demands  of  justice  are  satisfied 
by  the  infliction  of  its  penalty,  he  is  lost  for  ever, — eternal  life 
forfeited,  and  eternal  death  endured.  Here,  then,  is  the  place 
for  atonement, —what  is  it?"  (p.  10.)  He  then,  quoting 
from  Dr.  Alexander,  says, — "  In  its  simplest  form  the  problem 
of  a  religion  may  be  expressed  thus  :  Given  a  Supreme  Deity, 
the  Creator  and  Governor  of  all  things,  and  an  intelligent 
creature  in  a  state  of  alienation  and  estrangement  from  his 
Creator ;  to  determine  the  means  whereby  a  reconciliation  may 
be  effected,  and  the  creature  restored  to  the  favour  and  ser- 
vice of  God."  This  statement  of  the  question  he  adopts — 
adding,  "  The  problem  to  be  solved  is  this,  How  may  this  be 
accomplished  honourably  to  the  character  and  government  of 
the  Supreme  Ruler  ?  "  He  then  quotes  several  definitions  of 
atonement,  among  them,  this  from  Dr.  Jenkyn,  "Atonement 
is  an  expedient  substituted  in  the  place  of  the  literal  infliction 


CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED.  79 

of  the  penalty,  so  as  to  supply  the  government  just  and  good 
grounds  for  dispensing  favours  to  an  offender ;" — and  this  is 
from  Andrew  Fuller,  "  that  a  way  was  opened  by  the  mediation 
of  Christ,  for  the  free  and  consistent  exercise  of  mercy  in 
all  the  ways  which  sovereign  wisdom  saw  fit  to  adopt."  The 
definitions  are  all  to  the  same  effect,  and  all  accord  with  what 
I  have  said  of  the  legal  character  ascribed  to  the  atone- 
ment ;  so  that,  retrospectively,  it  but  meets  a  demand  that 
pertains  to  the  character  of  God  as  a  Lawgiver,  and  prospec- 
tively, it  is  related  to  the  mercy  He  may  manifest,  only  in 
the  way  of  making  such  manifestation  of  mercy  consistent 
with  the  interests  of  His  moral  government,  and  promotive  of 
them. 

But  the  problem  which  the  work  of  God  in  Christ  solves, 
while  it  includes,  goes  far  beyond  that  stated  by  Dr.  Alexander, 
or  recognised  in  these  definitions.  In  the  light  of  the  Gospel 
we  see,  that  our  need  of  salvation,  and  our  capacity  of  salva- 
tion as  contemplated  by  the  Father  of  our  spirits,  involved  the 
problem, — not  "  how  we  sinners  could  be  pardoned  and  recon- 
ciled, and  mercy  be  extended  to  us ;"  but  "  how  it  could  come  to 
pass,  that  we,  God's  offspring,  being  dead,  should  be  alive  again, 
being  lost,  should  be  found."  "  God  sent  forth  His  Son,  made 
of  a  woman,  made  under  the  law,  that  He  might  redeem  us 
who  were  under  the  law,  that  we  might  receive  the  adoption 
of  sons."  It  was  as  employed  "  in  bringing  many  sons  to  glory, 
that  it  became  Him,  of  whom  are  all  things,  and  by  whom 
are  all  things,  to  make  the  Captain  of  their  salvation  perfect 
through  sufferings." 

Nothing  can  illustrate  the  way  in  which  this  purely  legal  view 
of  the  atonement  works,  and  what  is  its  development,  better 
than  the  conclusions  at  which  Dr.  Wardlaw  has  arrived,  and 
which  he  expresses  in  commenting  upon  the  words  "  to  put 
away  sin."  "  The  expression  is  significantly  general.  And, 
for  my  own  part,  I  am  unable  to  discover  any  valid  objection 
to  our  stating  the  design  of  the  atonement  in  this  form  :  That 
it  was  an  atonement  for  sin,  an  atonement  whose  value  was 


8o  CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 

so  unlimited,  so  strictly  and  properly  infinite,  that  on  the 
ground  of  its  merits  had  God  willed  it,  fallen  angels  might  have 
been  saved  as  well  as  fallen  men  :  nay,  had  there  been  a  thou- 
sand rebel  worlds,  the  inhabitants  of  them  all."  (p.  107.) 
Thus  he  concludes, — contemplating  the  atonement  as  simply  a 
grand  moral  display,  illustrative  of  God's  condemnation  of  sin 
and  delight  in  holiness.  And  such  a  display  it  undoubtedly  is ; 
but  it  is  much  more  than  this.  Nor  is  it  even  this  healthfully 
and  truly  apart  from  those  specialties  in  man's  condition,  and 
from  that  divine  purpose  concerning  man,  by  which  its  nature 
and  character  have  been  determined.  How  different  from  this 
abstract  atonement  for  sin,  is  the  specific  reference  to  the 
condition  of  human  spirits  in  the  words,  "  For  what  the  law 
could  not  do,  in  that  it  was  weak  through  the  flesh,  God  send- 
ing His  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  and  for  sin, 
condemned  sin  in  the  flesh :  that  the  righteousness  of  the  law 
might  be  fulfilled  in  us,  who  walk  not  after  the  flesh,  but  after 
the  spirit" 

The  objection  to  both  forms  of  Calvinism  on  the  ground  of 
the  narrow  and  exclusively  legal  basis  on  which  the  necessity 
for  atonement  is  placed,  is  instructively  illustrated  by  the  rela- 
tion in  which  the  atonement  is  represented  as  standing  to  justi- 
fication by  faith.  We  may  here  take  President  Edwards  as  the 
representative  of  the  earlier  Calvinism,  and  Dr.  Payne  as  the 
representative  of  the  modified  Calvinism. 

Both  Edwards  and  Payne  regard  the  work  of  Christ  as  the 
meritorious  ground  of  justification.  Both  regard  faith  as  that 
by  which  the  individual  is  so  connected  with  that  work  as  to 
be  justified  on  the  ground  of  it  :  both  are  alike  solicitous  to 
exclude  the  faith  present  in  justification  from  being  itself  in 
any  measure  included  in  the  ground  of  that  justification  :  while 
at  the  same  time,  both  regard  this  faith  as  that  which  has  a 
Tightness  in  itself,  and  as  that  which  is  due  from  man  as  the 
right  reception  of  the  gospel.  Payne,  indeed,  treats  faith  more 
as  an  intellectual  act  than  Edwards  does.  But,  still,  he  objects 
to  putting  it  on  a  footing  with  the  ordinary  case  of  belief  under 


CALVINISM,  AS   RECENTLY  MODIFIED.  8l 

the  power  of  evidence ;  in  doing  which  he  thinks  some  others 
have  erred.  The  difference  between  their  several  systems  is 
connected  with  the  idea  of  imputation.  As  Edwards  holds 
man's  guilt  to  have  been  imputed  to  Christ  when  He  suffered 
for  sin,  so  he  holds  Christ's  righteousness  to  be  imputed  to 
believers,  making  them  personally  righteous  in  God's  sight; 
which  imputation  he  holds,  not  only  to  clothe  their  persons, 
determining  the  complacency  with  which  God  regards  them, 
but  also  all  their  virtues  and  graces,  giving  them  a  value 
beyond  their  intrinsic  value.  Payne  on  the  other  hand,  as  he 
rejects  the  conception  of  imputation  of  guilt,  rejects  also  that 
of  imputation  of  righteousness,  and  holds,  "  that  to  be  in  a 
justified  state  is  not  either  to  be  pronounced  just,  or  to  be 
made  actually  just, — for  both  are  impossible  in  the  case  of  a 
sinner, — but  it  is  to  be  treated  as  if  we  were  just  \  or  rather, 
perhaps,  to  be  in  the  state  of  those  whom  God  declares 
that  He  will  treat  as  if  they  were  just,  i.e.,  it  is  to  be  in  the 
faith  of  Christ;  for  the  divine  declaration  is,  that  believers 
are  the  persons  who  shall  be  treated  as  if  they  were  just." 

(P-  333-) 

Whatever  difficulty  attaches  to  the  idea  of  imputation,  this 
way  of  escaping  from  it  is  to  me  very  unsatisfactory.  The 
idea  "  that  guilt  and  innocence  or  sin  and  righteousness  are 
transferable  in  their  effects,  but  untransferable  in  themselves," 
which  underlies  the  whole  system  of  modern  Calvinism  on  this 
subject,  and  is  the  ground  on  which  Dr.  Payne,  while  rejecting 
the  word  "  imputation,"  continues  to  use  the  expression  "treated 
as  if,"  seems  to  be  tenable,  if  tenable  at  all,  only  if  we  exclude 
from  our  consideration  all  the  more  important  effects  of  sin  and 
righteousness. 

As  respects  the  sinner's  relation  to  God,  the  effect  of  sin  which 
is  most  important  is  the  displeasure  awakened  in  the  divine 
mind.  But,  Christ  is  not  held  to  have  been  really  the  object 
of  the  divine  displeasure  through  the  relation  in  which  He 
stood  to  us  and  our  sins,  although  expressions  have  been  used 
which,  apart  from  the  details  offered  in  explanation,  might  seem 


li 


82  CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 

to  contain  that  assertion ;  and  Dr.  Payne  has  not  only  asserted 
the  very  opposite  to  have  been  the  case,  but  has  asked,  and 
the  question  is  unanswerable, — "  How  could  God  manifest 
that  displeasure  which  did  not  exist?"  Neither  God's  dis- 
pleasure, nor,  therefore,  anything  expressing  God's  displeasure, 
are  we  to  conceive  of  as  included  in  the  alleged  transferred 
effects  of  sin.  But  what  in  all  our  Lord's  sufferings  can  be 
rightly  spoken  of  as  "transferred  effects  of  sin?"  were  not 
these  sufferings  in  their  nature  altogether  determined  by  what 
He  was  who  suffered?  and  is  not  the  fact  that  Christ's 
sufferings  were  in  reality  the  effects  of  holiness  and  love,  and 
not  transferred  effects  of  sin,  discernible  in  all  the  attempts 
which  we  have  seen  made  to  specify  the  elements  of  His 
sufferings  ? 

But  are  the  effects  of  righteousness  more  transferable  ?  It  is, 
indeed,  far  less  repulsive  to  think  of  these  as  transferred  to  us 
than  to  think  of  the  effects  of  sin  as  transferred  to  Christ ;  as  it 
is  also  far  less  repulsive  to  think  of  Christ's  righteousness  as 
imputed  to  us  than  to  think  of  our  sin  as  imputed  to  Christ, — 
to  think  of  God  as  well  pleased  with  us  for  Christ's  sake  than  to 
think  of  God  as  contemplating  Christ  with  displeasure  for  our 
sake.  But  a?'e  the  effects  of  righteousness  transferable  any 
more  than  the  effects  of  sin  ?  The  root  matter  here  is  God's 
favour,  as  there  it  was  His  displeasure.  Is  the  favour  of  God — 
that  favour  which  is  life — thus  transferable  ?  nay,  is  any  real 
fruit  of  righteousness  as  respects  the  experience  of  the  human 
spirit  in  its  relation  to  God,  and  intercourse  with  Him ;  or  in 
its  relation  to  man,  and  what  man  is  to  man  through  love  ;  or 
in  the  mind's  self-consciousness,  and  inward  peace  and  har- 
mony,— is  any  real  fruit  of  righteousness  in  any  of  these 
aspects  of  the  subject — and  these  are  the  fundamental  and 
alone  important  aspects  of  it — transferable  any  more  than 
righteousness  itself?  or,  are  any  of  these  at  all  separable  from 
righteousness?  If,  indeed,  we  descend  to  a  lower  region, 
it  is  at  least  intelligible  how  certain  benefits  may  be  con- 
ceived of  as  conferred  for  Christ's  sake — though  it  would  be 


CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED.  83 

far  from  correct  to  speak  of  these  as  "  effects  of  righteous- 
ness transferred,"  or,  of  their  bestowal  upon  us  as  a  treating 
us  as  if  we  were  righteous.  But  is  there  place  for  anything 
so  outward  as  this  in  the  matter  of  justification  ?  Surely, 
a  justification  which  does  not  introduce  into  the  divine  favour, 
into  the  light  of  the  divine  countenance,  is  no  justification 
at  all. 

The  strict  maintenance  of  the  idea  of  imputation  enables 
Edwards  to  give  to  the  expression,  "  for  Christ's  sake,"  an 
amplitude  of  meaning  that,  as  respects  justification,  may  seem 
to  meet  all  the  exigencies  of  the  subject.  If  God  sees  us  as 
clothed  with  the  righteousness  of  Christ,  He  may  be  conceived 
of  as  smiling  on  us  with  the  smile  of  favour  proper  to  that 
righteousness  :  and  to  this  the  faith  of  the  elder  Calvinists  rose. 
But,  if  this  idea  of  imputation  is  given  up,  then,  whatever  else 
may  be  supposed  to  be  given  for  Christ's  sake,  nothing  that  is 
suggested  by  the  words  "  the  favour  of  God  which  rests  upon 
Christ,"  can  be  conceived  of  as  so  given. 

Dr.  Payne  quotes  Mr.  Bennet  as  "  having  happily  and  satis- 
factorily shewn,  that  '  the  practice  of  conferring  favours  upon 
many,  from  regard  to,  and  as  an  expression  of  approbation  of, 
some  eminently  distinguished  individual,'  may  be  regarded  as 
a  law  of  the  divine  government :  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
procedure  supposed,  viz.,  considering  a  person  what  he  really 
is  not,  and  then  treating  him  as  if  he  had  been  ivhat  he  is  not, 
has  no  analogy  in  any  part  of  the  divine  conduct."  (p.  263.) 
No  doubt  this  is  true.  But  we  must  not  forget  the  high  region 
in  which  we  now  are,  and  that  not  of  seco?idary  gifts,  but  of 
that  life  which  lies  in  God's  favour,  are  we  speaking.  This 
we  receive  through  Christ,  or  we  receive  nothing ;  and  in 
reference  to  this,  any  correct  use  of  the  expression,  "  for 
Christ's  sake,"  must  have  a  far  higher  meaning  than  these 
analogies  furnish.  Abraham  believed  God,  and  was  called  the 
friend  of  God,  and  his  descendants  received  many  favours  for 
his  sake ; — but  were  they  for  his  sake  "  friends  of  God,"  or 
"treated  as  friends  of  God,"  apart  from  their  participation  in 


84  CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 

that  reality  in  respect  of  which  he  was  the  friend  of  God  ? 
"  They  who  are  of  faith  are  blessed  with  faithful  Abraham." 

Edwards  ascribes  the  place  which  faith  has  in  justification 
simply  to  this,  that  it  connects  the  individual  with  Christ. 
Payne  says,  "  If  we  are  justified  solely  on  the  ground  of  the 
perfect  work  of  Christ,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  the  justifica- 
tion of  all  men,  without  a  single  thought  or  act  on  their  part, 
but  the  rectoral  character  and  relation  of  Jehovah,  which 
renders  it  necessary  that  some  rule  of  justification  should  be 
enacted,  that  the  justice  of  the  Divine  Being  may  be  rendered 
apparent  by  His  bestowing  it  upon  those,  and  those  only,  who 
comply  with  that  rule.  Now,  it  is  manifest  that  any  requisition 
(and  it  must  be  a  requisition  on  account  of  the  rectoral  char- 
acter of  God)  would  secure  this  object ;  it  might  be  love,  for 
instance."  But  to  this,  i.e.,  making  it  love,  the  objection,  he 
says,  would  be  that  this  justification  might  appear  to  be  by 
works,  but  faith  is  not  liable  to  this  objection,  because  it, 
"cannot  be  confounded  with  fulfilling  the  law."  Yet  Dr. 
Payne  has  just  been  employed  in  objecting,  and  not  without 
reason,  to  the  idea  that  faith  is  as  it  were  a  new  law.  Now 
certainly  there  is  no  conception  of  the  relation  of  faith  to 
justification  which  seems  so  fitted  to  suggest  that  objectionable 
idea  as  the  conception  which  Dr.  Payne  has  expressed  in  the 
words  just  quoted  : — for  if  faith  is  a  requisition,  compliance 
with  which  is  required  that  the  justice  of  the  Divine  Being  may 
be  rendered  apparent  in  His  distinguishing  of  individuals  in  the 
bestowal  of  justification,  then  what  is  more  natural  than  to 
feel  that  the  new  law  of  faith  is  that  under  wThich  we  are,  com- 
pliance with  which  is  righteously  acknowledged  by  including 
us  in  the  number  who  shall  be  treated  for  Christ's  sake  as  if 
they  were  righteous,  and  non-compliance  with  which  shall 
infer  condemnation?  That  it  seems  to  Dr.  Payne  that  the 
moral  Governor  of  the  Universe  was  "  free  to  adopt  any  rule — 
only  it  must  be  some  fixed  and  declared  rule,"  indicates  a 
greater  departure  from  the  consideration  of  the  nature  of 
the  case  than  T  can  well  understand.      Surely  the  conception 


CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED.  85 

of  Edwards,  that  faith  is  connected  with  justification,  because 
it  connects  with  Christ,  commends  itself  much  more, — as  it 
also  is,  in  my  apprehension,  more  fitted  to  secure  the  end  which 
both  seek  to  attain,  viz.,  that  the  meritorious  work  of  Christ 
should  be  really  the  believer's  felt  ground  of  confidence  towards 
God,  and  not  his  own  faith.  It  may  seem,  indeed,  as  if  this 
were  secured  on  Dr.  Payne's  system  by  its  being  a  part  of  the 
gospel  believed,  that  the  work  of  Christ  was  the  meritorious 
ground  of  justification, — as  well  as  on  President  Edwards' 
system,  by  its  being  a  part  of  the  gospel  believed,  that 
we  are  made  righteous  and  are  accepted  because  of  the 
imputation  of  Christ's  righteousness ;  and,  no  doubt,  in 
strictness  of  thought  it  is  a  contradiction  to  say,  that  I 
am  trusting  to  Christ's  work  as  the  ground  on  which  God 
treats  me  as  if  I  were  righteous,  and,  at  the  same  time,  that  I 
esteem  my  own  faith  that  ground,  as  truly  as  it  is  a  contradic- 
tion to  say,  that  I  am  trusting  to  the  imputation  of  Christ's 
righteousness,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  my  own  faith.  But  I 
cannot  in  either  case  forget  that  my  faith  is  that  which  has 
individualised  me ;  and  the  remembrance  of  this  is,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  less  likely  to  produce  a  self-righteous  feeling,  if  I  am 
thinking  of  myself  as  clothed  with  the  righteousness  of  Christ, 
and  in  the  mind  of  the  Father  identified  with  Christ,  than  if  I 
am  thinking  of  myself  as  by  my  faith  introduced  into  the  circle 
of  those  with  whom,  according  to  the  rule  of  government 
which  He  has  revealed,  God  will,  for  Christ's  sake,  deal  as  if 
they  were  righteous.  For,  in  proportion  as  faith  is  contemplated 
as  a  requisition  made  in  order  that  it  may  be  the  basis  of  a 
judgment,  and  is  not  felt  to  be  simply  the  natural  and  necessary 
link  connecting  us  with  Christ,  there  is  an  opening  afforded  for 
the  coming  in  of  self-righteousness. 

But  the  fear  about  self-righteousness  arises  entirely  from  not 
seeing,  that  the  true  protection  from  self-righteousness  is  found 
in  the  very  nature  of  faith.  The  true  faith  precludes  self- 
righteousness,  because  that  which  it  apprehends  is  the  Father 

revealed  by  the  Son.     He  who  beholds  the  glory  of  God  in  the 
* i 


86 


CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 


\ 


face  of  Jesus  Christ,  is  saved  from  self-righteousness  by  the 
native  power  on  his  spirit  of  the  glory  which  he  beholds.  He 
is  in  the  presence  of  the  true  God,  truly  known,  and  "no 
flesh  shall  glory  in  His  presence."  It  is  an  error  to  hold  the 
connexion  between  faith  and  justification  to  be  arbitrary,  but  it 
is  a  deeper  error  not  to  see,  that  faith  excludes  boasting,  not 
by  the  arrangements  of  a  scheme,  but  by  its  being  the  know- 
ledge of  the  true  God.  To  take  precautions  that  the  confidence 
towards  God  which  arises  in  faith  shall  not  be  self-righteous,  is 
to  me  as  monstrous  as  it  would  be  to  take  precautions  that 
light  should  not  be  darkness.  Indeed  this  is  the  very  thing 
which,  in  taking  such  precautions,  is  done — done  in  reference 
to  the  highest,  the  absolute  light — the  light  of  eternal  life. 

This  serious  error  would  never  have  been  fallen  into,  if  the 
atonement  had  been  seen  in  its  prospective  relation  to  the 
gift  of  eternal  life  in  Christ,  and  as  that  by  which  God  has 
bridged  over  the  gulf  between  what  we  were  through  sin,  and 
what,  in  the  yearnings  of  His  Father's  heart  over  us,  He 
desired  to  make  us.  "This  is  the  record,  that  God  has  given 
to  us  eternal  life,  and  this  life  is  in  His  Son."  Less  than  our 
being  alive  in  that  eternal  life  which  is  sonship,  could  not 
satisfy  the  Father  of  our  spirits  ;  nor  as  orphan  spirits,  as  in  our 
alienation  from  God  we  are,  would  less  than  the  gift  of  that 
life  have  met  our  need.  And  the  faith  which  apprehends  this 
[.gift  as  given,  excludes  boasting  because  it  occupies  the  spirit, 
Mnot  with  itself,  but  with  the  gift  which  it  apprehends.     For  the 


," gift  is  given;  and  he  that  understandiTwhat  it  is,  and  appre- 
hends it  as  given,  is  altogether  filled  with  the  excellent  grace 
wherein  he  stands,  rejoicing  in  it,  and  conforming  himself  to 

'  I  it ;  and  thus,  seeing  the  Father  as  He  is  revealed  by  the  Son, 
and  apprehending  the  Son  as  the  living  way  to  the  Father,  and 
as  the  Lord  of  his  spirit,  he  welcomes  the  Son  to  reign  in  his 
heart,  and  in  the  spirit  of  the  Son  cries,  "  Abba,  Father."  And 
the  confidence  towards  the  Father  in  which  he  so  worships,  is 
not 'only  sustained  by  the  faith  of  the  Fathers  delight  in  the 
perfection  of  sonship  as  it  is  in  Christ,  but  also  belongs  to  the 


CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED.  8? 

very  nature  of  the  spirit  of  sonship,  as  it  is  a  response  to  the 
Fatherliness  that  is  in  God  ;  for  the  feeblest  cry  of  faith  is  a 
cry  in  Christ,  and  one  with  and  a  part  of  that  which  is  in  its 
absolute  perfection  in  Christ ;  sharing  in  His  preciousness  to 
the  heart  of  the  Father.  So  sharing,  not  through  any  process 
of  fiction  or  imputation — as  men  have  spoken — but  through 
a  process  strictly  natural,  and  which  commends  itself  to  us  as 
inevitable. 

Now,  because  of  the  very  near  approach  to  this  which  is  in 
the  conception  of  Edwards,  though  the  legal  light  in  which  he 
has  so  exclusively  seen  the  atonement  has  kept  him  intellec- 
tually (though  I  do  not  think  spiritually)  away  from  it,  I  would 
prefer  the  language  of  Edwards,  notwithstanding  the  tone  of 
legal  fiction  which  it  has,  to  what,  in  seeking  to  avoid  fiction, 
Dr.  Payne  and  others  have  substituted.  It  is  really  true,  that 
he  that  comes  to  God  in  Christ,  comes  invested  with  the  interest 
to  the  Father's  heart  of  that  sonship  in  which  he  comes,  and 
finds  that  sonship  a  living  way  to  the  Father — an  actual  getting 
near  to  God.  Therefore,  rightly  in  his  own  thoughts,  because 
.truly  in  the  Father's  thoughts,  is  such  a  worshipper  as  one  on 
whom  that  very  favour  rests,  which  rests  upon  Christ.  So  that 
I  cannot  help  feeling,  in  reading  President  Edwards'  represen- 
tations of  the  way  in  which  Christ's  righteousness  invests  with 
its  own  dignity  and  worth,  not  only  the  persons,  but  the  feeblest 
graces  of  those  who  are  in  Christ  by  faith,  that  what  he  says  is 
substantially  true,  must  be  true,  although  not  in  the  way  ol 
the  fiction  of  an  imputation ;  and  I  am  persuaded  that,  ii 
he  had  seen  the  atonement  as  that  by  which  the  Father  ol 
spirits  bridges  over  the  gulf  between  the  condition  of  rebellious, 
alienated  children,  and  the  condition  of  reconciled  children 
trusting  in  the  Father's  heart,  and  reposing  on  His  love,  instead 
of  seeing  it  in  the  legal  aspect  in  which  he  has  so  exclusively 
viewed  it,  he  would  have  conceived  truly,  and  spoken  unobjec- 
tionably,  of  God's  imputation  of  righteousness,  and  of  our 
acceptance  for  Christ's  sake, — as  we  have  seen  Luther  does. 

Dr.  Payne  may  feel  that  this  standing  of  sonship  given  in 


ll 


88  CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 

Christ,  and  revealed  for  faith  to  apprehend  and  enter  upon,  is 
liable  to  the  objection  that  he  urges  against  the  idea  that  the 
atonement  confers  legal  rights ;  which  idea,  while  it  has  had 
acceptance  with  others,  appears  to  him  destructive  of  the  grace 
of  the  gospel.  And,  no  doubt,  if  the  absoluteness  with  which 
God  bestows  a  gift,  leaving  it  for  him  on  whom  it  is  bestowed 
simply  that  he  should  receive  it  and  use  it  according  to  its 
nature — if  this  takes  from  the  free  grace  of  God  in  bestowing, 
the  objection  lies  equally  against  anything  actually  given,  and 
as  to  which  it  is  not  merely  the  fact  that  God  has  put  it  in  His 
own  power  to  give  it  if  it  should  please  Him.  But  Dr.  Payne 
himself  is  not  able  so  to  order  his  words  as  to  escape  all  the 
objectionableness  that  he  finds  in  the  language  of  others.  As 
the  most  guarded  and  unexceptionable  statement  he  can  offer  of 
the  relation  of  Faith  to  Justification,  he  says,  "  Faith  justifies 
by  bringing  an  individual  into  that  body,  to  every  individual 
of  which  the  blessing  of  justification  is  secured  by  the  promise, 
and  covenant,  and  oath  of  God."  (p.  322.)  But  wherein  does 
the  having  a  thing  through  faith,  "secured  to  me  by  the  promise, 
and  covenant,  and  oath  of  God,"  differ  from  having  through 
faith  a  legal  right  conferred  on  me  ?  He  quotes  Bishop  Hopkins 
as  using  the  language  of  right  in  pleading  with  God  on  the 
ground  of  the  work  of  Christ,  and  contrasts  his  expressions 
with  those  of  David,  "  Have  mercy  on  me,  O  God,  according 
to  Thy  lovingkindness  ; "  and  no  doubt  the  contrast  is  striking 
and  instructive.  But  the  oath  of  God,  that  if  we  comply  with  the 
required  condition  of  faith  He  will  treat  us  as  if  we  were  right- 
eous, might  justify,  in  the  believer,  the  language  of  which  Dr. 
Payne  complains,  as  well  as  the  doctrine  of  legal  right  objected 
to.  David's  language — the  language  of  true  faith — the  language 
of  the  spirit  of  Christ  in  man — is,  and  ever  must  be,  free  from 
all  legal  taint,  simply  because  it  is  the  language  of  truth,  ex- 
pressing in  him  who  is  led  by  the  spirit  of  truth,  a  confidence 
in  harmony  with  the  truth  of  things — a  confidence  in  which 
confession  of  sin  is  combined  with  filial  t7'iist  in  the  Father's 
heart. 


CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED.  89 

No  part  of  this  system  presents  a  more  instructive  develop- 
ment of  the  working  of  this  conception  of  rectoral  justice, — and 
of  rectoral  justice,  not  only  as  distinct  from  fatherly  love,  but 
also  from  absolute  justice  as  contemplated  by  Edwards, — than 
the  arbitrary  character  already  noticed  as  ascribed  by  Dr.  Payne 
to  the  relation  of  faith  to  justification.  For  while  the  relation 
of  faith  to  santification  is  recognised  as  a  relation  in  the  nature 
of  things,  its  relation  to  justification  is  held  to  be  arbitrary; 
and,  in  connection  with  this  distinction,  Dr.  Payne  objects  to 
Dr.  Russell's  saying  that,  "the  whole  efficacy  of  faith  in  the 
matter  of  justification  arises  from  its  object."  To  this  Dr. 
Payne  objects,  as  embodying  "  the  error  of  forgetting  that  man 
needs  a  change  of  state  as  well  as  a  change  of  character,"  i.e., 
justification  as  well  as  sanctification.  I  would  quite  object  to 
regarding  such  a  change  of  state  as  amounts  only  to  the  "  being 
treated  as  if  we  were  righteous,"  had  such  a  thing  been  possible, 
as  at  all  filling  up  the  words  "from  being  unjust  becoming  just." 
But  the  truth  is,  that  the  relation  of  faith  to  justification  is  as 
absolutely  one  in  the  nature  of  things  as  its  relation  to  sanctifi- 
cation. The  purpose  of  God  that  He  might  be  just,  and  the 
justifier  of  him  that  believeth  in  Christ,  has  a  far  deeper  and 
more  perfect  fulfilment  than  this  scheme  recognises  :  and  to 
understand  that  fulfilment,  we  must  learn  with  Luther  to  con- 
ceive aright  of  that  glory  for  Himself  in  man  which  God  con- 
templated when  He  proposed  to  justify  the  ungodly  by  faith. 
We  must  discern  the  relation  in  which  the  human  spirit  has 
come  to  stand  to  the  Father  of  spirits,  when  man  is  apprehend- 
ing and  believing  the  testimony  of  God,  that  He  has  given  to 
us  eternal  life  in  His  Son,  we  must  see  the  glory  that  God  has 
in  this  faith — how,  where  it  exists,  God  is  in  His  true  place  in 
the  heart  of  man,  and  man  is  in  his  true  place  in  relation  to 
God — how  man  has  come  to  be  nothing — how  God  is  now  all 
in  all — how  all  trust  in  the  flesh,  all  self-righteousness  has  ceased 
to  be— how  trust  in  the  Father's  heart  has  come  into  being, 
and  is  the  commenced  breathing  of  the  breath  of  eternal  life. 
Of  this  which  in  faith  is  accomplishing  in  the  human  spirit,  of 


90  CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 

this  which  is  the  glory  which  God  has  in  our  having  faith  in 
His  Son,  we  must  have  some  discernment,  that  we  may  under- 
stand how  God  is  just,  and  the  justifier  of  him  that  believeth 
in  Jesus.  If  the  weakness  and  scanty  measure  of  this  faith,  as 
it  is  found  in  those  that  believe,  render  what  Luther  calls  God's 
imputation  necessary, — if,  in  order  that  the  righteousness  of 
God  in  our  acceptance  may  be  fully  discerned,  the  nature  and 
development  of  faith,  as  these  are  seen  in  Christ,  must  be  con- 
sidered rather  than  the  measure  of  our  faith, — this  we  can 
understand.  For  we  may  say  that  the  dawn  of  the  life  of 
Christ  in  us  is  to  the  heart  of  the  Father  but  a  hope  and  pro- 
mise, as  the  infant  is  to  the  parent  the  promise  of  the  future 
man.  The  illustration  is  indeed  imperfect,  because  this  dawning 
life  is  Christ  in  us,  of  whose  fulness  we  are  receiving.  But  the 
important  point  is,  that  the  joy  of  the  heart  of  the  Father  over 
those  who  are  alive  to  Him  through  faith  in  the  Son,  is  simply 
and  purely  joy  in  the  reality  of  the  life  of  sonship  quickened  in 
them,  and  is  not  sustained  by  anything  of  the  nature  of  fiction 
or  imputation  •  and  that  it  is  in  this  view  of  what  in  faith  is 
accomplished  as  to  the  real  living  relation  of  man  to  God,  that 
we  are  to  see  the  justification  of  God  in  man's  justification  by 
faith.  For  do  we  not  feel  that,  if  the  Eternal  Father  is  satisfied, 
then  must  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  be  satisfied, — that  the 
provision  which  secures  the  fulfilment  of  the  longings  of  the 
Father's  heart,  must  secure  the  highest  ends  of  rectoral  govern- 
ment? "  My  son  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again;  he  was  lost, 
and  is  found  " — answers  all  things. 

Dr.  Payne  teaches  that  "  the  judicial  sentence  is  not  revealed 
to  the  conscience,  but  contained  in  the  Scriptures,"  that  sen- 
tence being,  "that  all  who  believe  in  the  Son  of  God  are 
justified."  And  this  he  teaches  both  in  opposition  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  eternal  justification  of  the  elect,  and  to  that  of  an 
act  of  God  in  reference  to  the  individual  taking  place  in  time, 
according  to  the  definition  of  the  Assembly's  Catechism.       (p. 

234-239-) 

It  accords  with  his  conception  of  the  relation  between  faith 


CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED.  91 

and  justification  as  being  arbitrary,  that  the  justified  should  have 
no  other  knowledge  of  their  being  justified  than  as  an  inference 
from  their  having  complied  with  the  arbitrary  condition  revealed. 
But  if  the  faith  that  justifies  be  the  faith  that  apprehends  the 
gift  of  sonship,  and  cries,  Abba,  Father,  then  must  justification 
be  revealed  in  the  conscience — even  there  where  condemnation 
had  been  revealed,  and  where  need  of  justification  had  been 
revealed.  "  If  any  man  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  he  is  none 
of  His."  "  As  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  they  are 
the  sons  of  God,"  and,  "  the  Spirit  itself  beareth  witness  with  our 
spirit  that  we  are  the  children  of  God."  This  is  equally  remote 
from  the  assumption  of  a  special  personal  revelation  of  the  fact 
of  justification,  and  from  resting  in  an  inference  from  the 
declarations  of  Scripture,  that  those  who  believe  are  justified ; 
for  what  it  amounts  to  is  simply  this, — that  in  "  counting  faith 
for  righteousness "  God  recognises  it  as  what  it  truly  is, — and 
therefore,  that  He  not  only  in  His  own  mind  pronounces  this 
condition  of  faith  our  right  condition,  but  also  by  His  Spirit 
utters  this  judgment  in  our  own  hearts. 

Let  us  trace  one  step  further  the  different  developments  of 
the  faith  of  an  atonement  which  merely  meets  the  demands  of 
divine  justice,  either  absolute  or  rectoral ;  and  of  the  faith  of  an 
atonement  through  which  we  have  the  adoption  of  sons. 

The  faith  that  apprehends  the  gift  of  eternal  life,  is  eternal 
life  commenced.  The  faith  that  apprehends  the  gift  of  the  Son 
utters  itself  in  the  cry,  Abba,  Father.  Therefore,  in  the  deepest 
sense,  the  Son  of  God  has  left  us  an  example  that  we  should 
walk  in  His  steps.  In  the  highest  path  that  our  spirits  are 
called  to  tread,  that  is  to  say,  in  our  intercourse  with  the 
Father  of  spirits,  the  footprints  of  Jesus  are  to  guide  us ;  our 
confidence  is  to  be  the  fellowship  of  His  confidence  ;  our  wor- 
ship, the  fellowship  of  His  worship : — for  sonship  is  that 
worship,  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  which  the  Father  seeketh. 

But  if,  according  to  the  system  of  the  earlier  Calvinists,  we 
draw  near  to  God  in  the  confidence  of  the  legal  standing  given 
to  us  in  Christ,  and  not  as  drawn  to  God  and  emboldened  by 


92  CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 

the  Fatherliness  of  the  Father's  heart  revealed  by  the  Son ;  or 
if,  according  to  the  system  of  the  later  Calvinists,  we  draw  near, 
having  mental  reference  to  an  atonement  which  has  furnished  a 
ground  on  which  God  may  show  us  mercy,  and  not  in  the  light 
of  an  atonement  by  which  we  see  ourselves  redeemed  from  the 
law,  that  we  might  receive  the  adoption  of  sons,  then  is  our  walk 
with  God, — if  such  it  can  be  called, — no  longer  a  being  led  by 
the  spirit  of  Christ,  neither  are  our  spiritual  steps  in  His  foot- 
prints ; — for  our  experience  is  no  repetition  of,  no  fellowship  in 
His  experience,  nor  the  breathing  of  our  new  life  the  free 
breathing  of  the  life  of  sonship. 

I  have  given  to  this  modified  Calvinism  a  large  space,  but 
not  larger  than  the  acceptance  which  it  has  met  with  may 
justify.  It  has  necessarily  arisen  from  the  purpose  with  which  I 
have  noticed  it,  that  I  have  dwelt  on  that  in  it  to  which  I 
object,  rather  than  on  that  in  it  with  which  I  agree  ; — but  I  can- 
not pass  on  without  bearing  testimony  to  the  clearness  and 
power  with  which  its  teachers  expose  much  of  that  which  is 
untenable  in  the  earlier  Calvinism,  especially  on  the  subject  of 
the  extent  of  the  atonement.  But,  as  I  have  endeavoured  to 
show,  what  is  negative  is  more  satisfactory  than  what  is  positive 
— their  breaking  down,  than  their  building  up.  They  have  shed 
no  light  on  the  nature  of  the  atonement  that  renders  their  faith 
in  the  universality  of  the  atonement  more  consistent  than  that  of 
the  Arminians,  with  whom  Dr.  Owen  contended  ;  still  less  have 
they  done  anything  towards  freeing  the  doctrine  of  the  atone- 
ment from  its  exclusively  legal  character,  or  that  has  connected 
it  more  intelligently  with  the  purpose  of  God  in  redeeming  us 
who  were  under  the  law,  that  we  might  receive  the  adoption  of 
sons.  So  that  whatever  foundation  for  a  trust  in  God's  mercy 
this  system  may  offer,  it  may  be  said  as  truly  of  it  as  of  the 
earlier  Calvinism,  that  strictly  adhered  to,  and  all  consciousness 
that  does  not  exactly  accord  with  it  being  rejected,  our  walking 
in  the  footsteps  of  the  Son  in  His  intercourse  with  the  Father, 
— in  other  words,  our  participation  in  the  life  of  sonship,  and  all 
direct  dealing  on  our  part  with  the  Father's  heart  as  the  Father's 


CALVINISM,  AS   RECENTLY  MODIFIED.  93 

heart, — in  other  words,  all  experimental  knowledge  of  God, 
would  become  impossible. 

I  say  "  strictly  adhered  to."  But  in  truth,  in  men's  actual 
living  dealing  with  God,  neither  form  of  Calvinism,  however  it 
may  have  possession  of  the  intellect,  affects  the  spirit  of  Christ ; 
whose  identity  as  in  the  head  and  in  the  members  abide, — 
whose  cry,  Abba,  Father,  is  one  and  the  same  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  confidence  which  that  cry  expresses,  being  alike  faith  in 
the  heart  of  the  Father,  whether  as  that  is  perfect  in  the  eternal 
Son  who  ever  dwells  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  or  as  it  is 
quickened  by  Him  in  those  to  whom  He  reveals  the  Father, 
giving  them  power  to  be  the  sons  of  God. 

But  a  true  conception  of  the  work  of  Christ  must  be  in  per- 
fect harmony  with  the  nature  of  that  eternal  life — the  life  of 
sonship — which  is  given  to  us  in  Christ.  The  atonement  by 
which  the  way  into  the  holiest  is  opened  to  us,  must  accord  with 
what  that  living  way  is  and  with  what  it  is  to  draw  near  to  God 
in  that  way.  The  sacrifice  for  sin  by  which  the  worshippers  are 
sanctified,  must  accord  with  the  nature  of  the  worship — that 
worship  which  is  the  response  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Son  to  the 
Father ; — God  is  a  Spirit ;  and  they  that  worship  Him  must 
worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth, — the  Father  seeketh  such 
to  worship  Him. 

The  persuasion  of  being  in  some  measure  in  that  light  as  to 
the  nature  of  the  atonement  in  which  this  unity  is  seen ;  the 
desire  to  teach  what  I  seem  to  myself  to  have  been  taught ;  the 
hope  to  be  enabled  of  God  so  to  do;  these  are  the  feelings 
under  the  influence  of  which  I  am  now  writing. — I  have  dwelt 
so  long  on  what  others  have  taught,  believing  that  it  would 
appear  that  they  have  not  made  my  present  endeavour  super- 
fluous, and  hoping  so  far  to  secure  the  interest  of  my  readers, 
that  they  will  at  least  feel  that  further  light  is  desirable,  whether 
a  ray  of  such  further  light  be  in  these  pages  or  not. 

But  that  no  misconception  may  be  entertained  as  to  the  sense 
in  which  I  use  the  word  "  desirable,"  I  may  state  here  first, 
what  light  I  recognise  the  atonement  to  have  shed  on  men's 


94  CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 

minds,  even  while  it  has  been,  as  appears  to  me,  so  imperfectly 
understood  and  further,  what  there  has  been  in  the  means  of 
grace  which  men  have  been  enjoying,  to  make  up  for  the  short- 
coming that  has  been  in  their  apprehension  of  the  atonement, 
and  even  to  neutralise  practically  elements  of  error. 

As  to  the  first  point,  it  is  clear  that  these  two  rays  of  divine 
light  have  been  shed  on  the  spirits  of  all  who  have  believed  in 
the  atonement,  in  whichever  of  the  forms  of  thought  which  we 
have  been  considering,  or  in  whatever  kindred  form  of  thought 
it  has  been  present  to  their  minds, — viz.  ist,  the  exceeding  evil 
and  terrible  nature  of  sin  ;  and  2nd,  the  pure  and  free  nature, 
as  well  as  infinite  greatness  of  the  love  of  God.  I  mean  that 
the  human  spirit  that  saw  the  atonement  in  relation  to  itself 
has,  of  necessity,  been  filled  with  an  awful  sense  of  the  evil  of 
sin,  and  with  an  overwhelming  sense  of  the  love  of  God. 

That  the  atonement  should  tell  with  its  full  power  as  to  the 
latter  of  these  (and  indeed  as  to  both),  the  use  of  the  pronoun 
"  our,"  which  Luther  so  insists  on,  must  be  known.  But  with 
some  of  this  power,  and  that  power  increasing  as  the  approach 
to  personal  appropriation  has  been  nearer,  must  the  atonement 
ever  have  been  realised  by  human  spirits.  Of  the  cords  of  love 
by  which  God  is  felt  to  draw  us  when  the  atonement  is  believed, 
Gambold  has  said,  "  When  we  learn,  that  God,  the  very  Maker 
of  heaven  and  earth,  in  compassion  to  us  fallen  and  wretched 
creatures  (who  did  no  more  answer  the  law  of  our  creation), 
and  to  make  propitiation  for  our  sins,  came  down,  conversed, 
suffered,  and  died  as  a  real  meek  man  in  this  world ;  that  by 
the  merit  of  this  act  we  might  be  everlastingly  relieved,  par- 
doned, and  exalted  to  greater  privileges  than  we  had  lost :  what 
must  be  the  effect,  but  an  overwhelming  admiration,  an  agony 
of  insolvent  gratitude,  and  prostration  of  our  spirit  in  the  dust 
before  our  Benefactor  ?  " 

Nor  is  the  power  of  the  atonement  to  impart  an  awful  sense 
of  the  evil  of  sin  less  certain,  and  that,  not  only  as  testifying 
to  the  divine  judgment  on  sin,  but  also  as  by  the  excellence  of 
pure  unselfish  love  which  it  vindicates  for  God,  awakening  in 


CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED.  95 

the  human  spirit  the  sense  of  the  exceeding  sinfulness  of  sin 
as  rebellion  against  God. 

But  further,  not  only  have  these  rays  of  the  light  that  is  in 
the  atonement  been  reaching  men's  spirits  even  when  that  doc- 
trine has  been  most  clouded ;  much  also  of  that  light  of  life 
which  is  in  the  atonement,  which  men  from  their  limited  or 
erroneous  views  of  its  nature  have  failed  to  receive  from  it 
directly,  they  have  still,  so  to  speak,  had  refracted  to  them 
from  the  writings  of  those  inspired  teachers,  who  themselves 
were  in  its  full  light.  In  this  way,  though  not  seen  in  the  atone- 
ment itself,  perceptions  of  God's  purpose  for  man  as  revealed 
in  Christ  have  been  attained,  which  men  have  proceeded  to  add 
to  their  system,  and  even  to  connect  with  the  atonement,  though 
not  as  its  due  development  and  what  its  very  nature  implied. 

Thus,  with  the  earlier  Calvinists,  while  that  legalism  which 
was  in  their  views  of  the  work  of  Christy  hindered,  as  we  have 
seen,  their  perceptions  of  the  relation  between  the  atonement 
and  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  the  life  that  is  in  Christ,  viz.,  son- 
ship,  still,  the  purpose  of  God  that  we  should  be  sons  of  God, 
was  recognised  as  taught  in  the  Scriptures,  and  adoption  was 
both  added  to  justification  in  the  system  formed,  and  also  con- 
nected with  the  atonement  as  a  part  of  what  Christ's  work  had 
purchased  for  those  for  whom  He  had  given  Himself.  So  also 
of  sanctification,  and  of  all  things,  in  short,  pertaining  to  life 
and  to  godliness ;  they  were  all  recognised  as  entering  into 
God's  gracious  purpose  in  Christ,  and  as  received  through 
Christ, — and  were  also  connected  with  the  atonement  as  pur- 
chased by  it,  though  this  connection  was  in  an  arbitrary  way ; 
the  real  connection  between  the  atonement  and  the  eternal  life 
given  in  Christ  not  being  understood. 

So  also  in  the  modern  Calvinism,  although  the  necessity  for, 
and  nature  of  the  atonement,  are  exclusively  referred  to  the 
character  of  God,  as  a  moral  governor,  bound  by  the  obliga- 
tions of  rectoral  justice,  a  large  benevolence,  not  to  say  a 
Fatherly  heart,  is  recognised  as  availing  itself  of  the  removal  of 
the  legal  obstacle  to  its  outflowing. 


96  CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED. 

The  history  of  Christianity  affords  many  illustrations  of  the 
divine  life  that  abides  in  the  disjecta  membra — the  fragmentary 
portions  of  divine  truth,  and  which  so  vindicates  its  divine 
character  in  spite,  not  only  of  men's  misarrangements,  but  even 
of  the  admixture  of  error.  This  power,  which  is  seen  to  belong 
to  portions  of  truth  put  out  of  the  place  they  have  in  the  divine 
counsel,  and  even  mixed  with  error,  is  mainly  to  be  referred  to 
conscience,  and  the  light  that  is  from  God  in  every  man  j  for 
great  as  are  the  obligations  of  conscience  to  the  Scriptures,  not 
less  assuredly  are  those  of  the  Scriptures  to  conscience,  by 
which  men's  power  to  pervert  the  Scriptures  has  been  partly 
limited  and  partly  neutralised.  But  this  comforting  fact  is  also 
partly  to  be  referred  to  the  awe  with  which  the  Scriptures  are 
regarded,  and  which  forbids  the  practical  contradiction  of  them 
in  those  who  use  them  reverently  as  a  lamp  for  their  feet  and  a 
light  for  their  path ;  and  this  even  where  practical  conformity 
with  the  Scriptures  is  practical  contradiction  to  men's  own  sys- 
tems. Thus,  however  conclusive  the  arguments  of  Dr.  Payne 
or  Dr.  Jenkyn  appear,  when  exposing  the  wrong  footing  before 
God  on  which  sinners  are  made  to  stand,  when  taught  to  think 
of  all  they  ask  as  what  they  have  a  legal  vested  right  to  obtain, 
the  serious  and  devout  among  those  who  hold  the  doctrine  ob- 
jected to,  are  not  found  to  be  in  consequence  less  lowly,  or 
humble,  or  less  frequent  in  the  use  of  the  most  heart-broken 
pleadings  of  the  psalms  in  their  actual  intercourse  with  God. 
Thus  also  are  the  conclusions  we  would  draw,  as  to  the  results 
of  believing  that  Christ  died  only  for  some,  seemingly  practi- 
cally contradicted  by  the  love  to  all  men  by  which  many  are 
seen  animated  who  have  adopted  that  error.  Thus  again  are  an- 
tinomian  systems  seen  combined  with  tenderness  of  conscience, 
and  the  anxious  desire  for  entire  conformity  with  the  will  of 
God.  These  facts  arise,  I  say,  partly  from  the  power  of  con- 
science, and  partly  from  this  divine  excellence  in  the  Scriptures, 
that,  being  pervaded  by  the  truth  of  the  will  of  God,  in  all 
variety  of  form,  as  doctrine,  precept,  example,  that  truth,  though 
excluded  by  a  wrong  system  from  portions  of  the  word,  meets 


CALVINISM,  AS  RECENTLY  MODIFIED.  97 

the  human  spirit  at  other  points ;  and,  so,  the  practical  teach- 
ing of  an  apostle  may  neutralise  a  misconception  on  our  part 
as  to  his  doctrines,  or  an  error  as  to  one  doctrine  be  counter- 
acted by  the  full  reception  of  another  : — a  misapprehension,  for 
example,  of  that  which  is  taught  when  it  is  said,  that  "  God 
justifies  the  ungodly  who  believe/'  by  the  apprehension  that 
"without  holiness  no  man  may  see  God." 

Yet  are  we  not  on  this  account  the  less  earnestly  to  labour 
to  attain  to  the  apprehension  of  the  unity  and  simplicity  of 
truth.  Therefore,  while  we  should  be  thankful  for  the  power 
which  the  atonement  has  over  men's  spirits,  even  when  only 
partially  understood  and  in  part  misconceived  of,  and  thankful 
that  justification,  adoption,  and  sanctification  are  recognised  in 
men's  systems,  though  the  relation  in  which  these  stand  to  the 
atonement  be  artificial  rather  than  natural,  yet  should  we  feel 
it  desirable  to  attain,  if  it  may  be,  to  that  fuller  apprehension 
of  the  great  work  of  God  in  Christ  which  will  render  it  to  us  a 
full-orbed  revelation  of  God,  and  a  manifestation,  not  of  the  rec- 
titude of  the  moral  Governor  of  the  universe  merely,  but  of  the 
heart  of  the  Eternal  Father, — connecting  itself  naturally  with 
our  justification,  adoption,  and  sanctification,  and  all  that  per- 
tains to  our  participation  in  the  eternal  life  which  is  the  gift  of 
the  Father  in  the  Son. 


98 


J 


•f 


CHAPTER   V. 

REASON   FOR  NOT  RESTING  IN  THE   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  NATURE 

OF  THE  ATONEMENT   ON  WHICH    THESE    SYSTEMS    PROCEED. 

THE   ATONEMENT   TO    BE   SEEN    BY   ITS   OWN    LIGHT. 


yHE  idea  that  the  Divinity  of  our  Lord  was  a  pre-requisite 
to  the  atonement,  because  it  rendered  possible  the  endur- 
ance in  time  of  infinite  penal  sufferings — sufferings  therefore 
commensurate  with  the  eternal  sufferings  which  were  the  doom 
of  sin — has,  as  we  have  seen,  been  felt  repulsive ;  and  it  has 
been  thought  a  worthier  conception  to  regard  the  personal 
dignity  of  Christ  as  giving  infinite  value  to  His  sufferings,  without 
relation  at  all  to  their  amount.  Yet  the  immeasurably  great,  if 
not  infinite  amount  of  Christ's  sufferings  is  still  dwelt  upon ;  nor 
is  any  attempt  made  on  the  ground  of  the  dignity  of  the  sufferer 
to  weaken  the  impression  which  the  sacred  narrative  had  hither- 
to been  felt  to  give  of  what  was  endured  by  the  man  of  sorrows, 
and  more  especially  of  the  awful  and  mysterious  agony  in  the 
garden  and  on  the  cross.  Faithfulness  to  the  inspired  record 
is  not  alone  the  explanation  of  this.  The  awful  conceptions  of 
the  Saviour's  sufferings  which  have  from  the  beginning  entered 
into  men's  thoughts  of  the  atonement,  have  been  so  manifestly 
at  the  foundation  of  the  apprehensions  of  the  divine  wrath 
against  sin,  and  the  divine  mercy  towards  sinners,  which  the 
faith  of  the  atonement  has  quickened  in  men,  that  it  could  not 
but  be  felt,  that  to  lower  these  conceptions  would  be  to  lessen 
the  power  of  the  atonement  on  human  spirits.     But — however 


THE  ATONEMENT  BY  ITS  OWN  LIGHT. 


99 


much  it  may  be  felt  that  the  dignity  of  the  sufferer  gave  infinite 
value  to  any  suffering  to  which  He  submitted,  and  however 
true  it  is — and  it  is  most  true — that  infinitely  less  than  we 
believe  our  Saviour  to  have  suffered  for  us  would,  being  believ- 
ingly  apprehended  by  us  as  expressing  our  preciousness  to  the  heart 
of  God,  inspire  in  us  hope  towards  God ;  and  however  much, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  may  feel  repelled  by  that  weighing  in 
scales  of  the  sufferings  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  the  sufferings  of 
the  damned,  in  which  their  conceptions  of  divine  justice  and  of 
the  atonement  which  it  demanded,  engaged  the  earlier  Calvin- 
ists; — the  truth  is  that  the  sufferings  of  Christ  arose  so  naturally 
out  of  what  He  was,  and  the  relation  in  which  He  stood  to 
those  for  whose  sins  He  suffered,  that  though  His  divine  nature 
might  be  conceived  of  as  giving  them  weight,  however  small  in 
themselves,  yet  to  that  very  divine  nature  must  we  refer  their 
awful  intensity,  and,  to  us,  immeasurable  amount.  The  neces- 
sity which  has,  as  we  have  seen,  been  felt  alike  by  earlier  and 
later  Calvinists,  in  attempting  to  specify  the  elements  of  the 
Saviour's  sufferings,  to  keep  within  the  limits  indicated  by  who 
and  what  He  was  that  suffered,  has  obliged  them  to  recognise 
holiness  and  love  as  what  in  Christ  made  the  sources  of  pain 
specified,  sources  of  pain  to  Him ;  and  if  the  sinfulness  of  sin, 
and  the  misery  to  which  it  exposed  sinners,  were  painful  to 
Christ  because  of  His  holiness  and  love,  then  must  they  have 
been  painful  in  proportion  to  His  holiness  and  love. 

But  there  is  a  further  and  a  still  more  important  thought 
which  seems  fitly  suggested  by  these  details,  on  which  these 
men  of  God  have  ventured  in  much  reverence  of  spirit,  I  be- 
lieve, and  love  to  Him  who  was  their  hope.  What  I  have  felt 
— and  the  more  I  consider  it,  feel  the  more — is,  surprise  that 
the  atoning  element  in  the  sufferings  pictured,  has  been  to 
their  minds  sufferings  as  sufferings,  the  pain  and  agony  as  pain 
and  agony.  It  no  doubt  arose  out  of  the  conception  that  the 
sufferings  endured  were  the  punishment  of  our  sin, — endured 
for  us  by  our  substitute, — that  the  pain  present  should  as  pain 
become  the  prominent  object  of  attention.     But  my  surprise  is, 


100  THE  ATONEMENT  TO  BE  SEEN 

7iot  that,  to  men  believing  the  sufferings  contemplated  to  be 
strictly  penal,  the  pain  as  pain  should  be  the  chief  object  of 
attention,  being  indeed  that  for  which  alone,  on  this  view,  a 
necessity  existed  ;  but  my  surprise  is,  that  these  sufferings 
being  contemplated  as  an  atonement  for  sin,  the  holiness  and 
love  seen  taking  the  form  of  suffering  should  not  be  recognised 
as  the  atoning  elements — the  very  essence  and  adequacy  of  the 
©acrince  for  sin  presented  to  our  faith. 

President  Edwards  seems  to  have  put  this  question  to 
himself,  "  Christ  being  what  He  was,  how  could  God,  when 
imputing  the  sins  of  the  elect  to  Him,  lay  the  weight  of  these 
sins  upon  Him  and  punish  Him  for  them,  subjecting  Him  to 
the  infinite  suffering  which  was  their  due?"  And  he  has 
answered  thus ; — "  Christ  being  infinitely  holy,  God  was  able 
to  cause  Him  to  feel  the  awful  weight  of  the  sins  of  the  elect 
by  revealing  their  sins  to  Him  in  the  spirit — so  bringing  Him 
under  a  weight  and  pressure  of  these  sins  to  be  measured  by 
His  holiness  j — thus  God  laid  the  sins  of  the  elect  on  Christ : 
— and  again,  Christ  loving  the  elect  with  a  perfect  love,  God 
was  able, — by  bearing  in  upon  Christ's  spirit  the  perfect  realisa- 
tion of  what  these  objects  of  His  love  were  exposed  to  suffer, 
— to  make,  through  His  love  to  them,  their  conceived-of  suffer- 
ing, real,  infinite  suffering  to  Him."  In  this  way  God  is 
represented,  not  only  as  punishing  the  innocent  for  the  guilty, 
but  as,  in  doing  so,  availing  Himself  of  a  capacity  of  enduring 
pain  which  consisted  in  the  perfection  of  holiness  and  love, — 
pain  endured  by  holiness  through  being  holiness,  and  by  love 
through  being  love,  being  represented  as  the  punishment 
inflicted. 

Now,  while  it  is  easy  to  realise  that  the  sin  of  those  whom 
He  came  to  save,  and  the  misery  to  which  through  sin  they 
were  obnoxious,  being  present  to  the  spirit  of  Christ,  these 
would  press  upon  Him  with  a  weight  and  affect  Him  with  an 
intensity  of  suffering,  proportioned  to  His  hatred  to  sin  and 
love  to  sinners  ;  and  while  in  respect  of  the  suffering  thus 
arising,  the  sufferer  is  seen  to  be  a  sacrifice, — and  a  sacrifice  in 


<u 


BY  ITS  OWN  LIGHT. 


t*wr%4 


IOI 


which,  if  we  meditate  upon  it,  it  seems  to  me  that  we  may  see 
atoning  virtue  ; — yet  it  seems  to  me  impossible  to  contemplate  | 
the  agony  of  holiness  and  love  in  the  realisation  of  the  evil  of 
sin  and  of  the  misery  of  sinners,  as  penal  suffering.  Let 
my  reader  endeavour  to  realise  the  thought  : — The  sufferer  : 
suffers  what  he  suffers  just  through  seeing  sin  and  sinners  with 
God's  eyes,  and  feeling  in  reference  to  them  with  God's  heart.  Is 
such  suffering  a  punishment  ?  Is  God,  in  causing  such  a  divine 
experience  in  humanity,  inflicting  a  punishment  ?  There  can 
be  but  one  answer. 

Reflecting  on  that  answer,  and  seeing  it  to  be  impossible  to 
regard  suffering,  of  which  such  is  the  nature,  as  penal,  I  find 
myself  forced  to  distinguish  between  an  atoning  sacrifice  for 
sin  and  the  enduring  as  a  substitute  the  punishment  due  to  sin, 
— being  shut  up  to  the  conclusion,  that  while  Christ  suffered 
for  our  sins  as  an  atoning  sacrifice,  what  He  suffered  was  not  — 
because  from  its  nature  it  could  not  be — a  punishment.  I  say, 
I  find  myself  shut  up  to  this  conclusion,  and  that  I  am  obliged 
to  recognise  a  distinction  between  an  atonement  for  sin  and 
substituted  punishment — a  distinction,  the  necessity  of  which 
might  have  been  expected  to  force  itself  upon  the  attention  of 
those  who,  in  endeavouring  to  conceive  of  Christ's  sufferings, 
have  found  themselves  constrained  to  seek  for  these  in  His 
holiness  and  love, — Divine  Holiness  and  Divine  Love  feeling 
in  Him  in  humanity  towards  man  and  man's  sin  and  man's 
misery  through  sin,  what  in  God  they  eternally  feel. 

Reader,  permit  me  to  ask  you  to  pause  here  and  consider 
what  the  question  is  to  which  I  have  led  your  mind.  It  is  not 
a  question  as  to  the  fact  of  an  atonement  for  sin.  It  is  not  a 
question  as  to  the  amount  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ  in  making 
atonement.  It  is  not  a  question  as  to  the  elements  of  these 
sufferings.  It  is  not  so  even  between  me  and  those  who 
believe  in  the  imputation  of  our  sin  to  Christ  in  the  strictest 
sense.  Even  they  introduce  no  element  into  His  consciousness 
which  amounted  to  His  being  in  His  own  apprehension  the 
personal  object  of  divine  wrath.      The   question  to  which   I 


(U 


f 


") 


^ 


102  THE  ATONEMENT  TO  BE  SEEN 

have  led  you  is  this  :  The  ^sufferings  of  Christ  in  making  His 
soul  an  offering  for  sin  being  what  They  were,  was  it  the  pain 
as  pain,  and  as  a  penal  infliction,  or  was  it  the  pain  as  a  con- 
dition and  form  oTholiness  and  love  under  the  pressure  of 
our  sin  and  its  consequent  misery,  that  is  presented  to  our 
faith  as  the  essence  of  the  sacrifice  and  its  atoning  virtue  ? 

The  distinction  on  which  this  question  turns  appears  to  me 
all-important  in  our  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the  atonement, 
and  we  shall  be  greatly  helped  by  keeping  it  steadily  in  view ; 
for  my  conviction  is,  that  the  larger  and  the  more  comprehen- 
sive of  all  its  bearings  our  thoughts  of  the  atonement  become, 
the  more  clear  will  it  appear  to  us,  that  it  was  the  spiritual 
essence  and  nature  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  and  not  that 
these  sufferings  were  penal,  which  constituted  their  value  as 
entering  into  the  atonement  made  by  the  Son  of  God  when  He 
put  away  sin  by  the  sacrifice  of  Himself — making  His  soul  a 
sacrifice  for  sin — through  the  eternal  Spirit  offering  Himself 
without  spot  to  God. 

It  has  been  in  the  free  consideration  of  the  actual  elements 
of  the  sufferings  of  Christ  as  these  have  been  represented  by 
men  who  had  themselves  quite  another  conception  of  the 
subject,  that  the  important  distinction  between  an  atonement 
for  sin,  and  substituted  punishment,  has  now  been  arrived  at ; 
and  so,  it  is  in  the  way  of  studying  the  atonement  by  its  own 
light,  and  of  meditation  on  what  it  is  revealed  to  have  been, 
that  I  propose  to  proceed  in  seeking  positive  conclusions  as  to 
its  nature,  its  expiatory  virtue,  and  its  adequacy  to  all  the  ends 
contemplated.  And  surely  this  is  the  right  course  in  order 
that  untested  preconceptions  may  not  mislead  us  ;  for  even  as 
to  the  abstract  question — "  What  is  an  atonement  for  sin  ?"  it 
is  surely  wise  to  seek  its  answer  in  the  study  of  the  atonement 
for  sin  actually  made,  and  revealed  to  our  faith  as  accepted  by 
God. 

But  before  proceeding  thus  to  consider  the  atonement  made 
by  Christ  for  the  sins  of  men  by  the  light  that  shines  in  itself, 
there  is  a  ray  of  light  on  the  nature  of  atonement  for   sin 


h 


BY  ITS  OWN  LIGHT.  103 

afforded  to  us  by  an  incident  in  the  history  of  the  children  of 
Israel,  which  claims  our  attention  because  of  the  marked  way 
in  which  it  is  recorded,  viz.,  the  staying  of  the  plague  by 
Phinehas. 

As  compared  with  any  other  light  that  the  old  testament 
Scriptures  shed  on  the  subject  of  atonement,  this  incident  has 
the  special  importance  of  not  being  a  mere  instituted  type,  but 
a  reality  in  itself.  Phinehas  had  no  command  to  authorise  what 
he  did,  or  promise  to  proceed  upon.  That  which  he  did  was  a 
spontaneous  expression  of  feeling.  But  that  feeling  was  so  in 
accordance  with  the  mind  of  God,  that  God  acknowledged  it 
by  receiving  what  he  did  as  an  atonement.  "  And  the  Lord 
spake  unto  Moses,  saying,  Phinehas,  the  son  of  Eleazar,  the 
son  of  Aaron  the  priest,  hath  turned  my  wrath  away  from  the 
children  of  Israel,  while  he  was  zealous  for  My  sake  (margin, 
with  My  zeal)  among  them,  that  I  consumed  not  the  children 
of  Israel  in  My  jealousy.  Wherefore  say,  Behold,  I  give  unto 
him  My  covenant  of  peace  :  and  he  shall  have  it,  and  his  seed 
after  him,  even  the  covenant  of  an  everlasting  priesthood  ; 
because  he  was  zealous  for  his  God,  and  made  an  atonement 
for  the  children  of  Israel."  Numbers  xxv.  10-13.  Here  we 
see  a  man  turning  away  the  wrath  of  God,  and  staying  the 
plague  which  was  the  manifestation  of  that  wrath,  by  an  act  of 
which  the  essence  was,  condemnation  of  sin  and  zeal  for  the 
glory  of  God.  This  act,  done  in  the  sight  of  all  Israel, 
("  zealous  for  My  sake  among  them ")  was  immediately  ac- 
cepted by  the  God  of  Israel — may  we  not  say,  in  mercy  taken 
hold  of  by  the  God  of  Israel? — as  a  justification  of  Himself 
in  turning  away  His  wrath  from  the  children  of  Israel — an 
atonement  for  the  children  of  Israel.  There  can  be  no  uncer- 
tainty as  to  the  atoning  element  here.  It  was  not  the  mere 
death  of  the  subjects  of  the  act  of  Phinehas.  Had  they  died 
by  the  plague,  their  death  would  have  been  no  atonement, — 
the  death  of  the  twenty-four  thousand  who  so  died  was  none. 
But  the  moral  element  in  the  transaction — the  mind  of  Phine- 
has— his  zeal  for  God  — his  sympathy  in  God's  judgment  on 


104 


THE  ATONEMENT  TO  BE  SEEN 


sin,  this  was  the  atonement,  this  its  essence.  Surely  we  have 
here  a  ray  of  light  shed  on  the  distinction  between  making  an 
atonement  for  sin  and  bearing  the  punishment  of  sin  • — nor 
can  we  rightly  weigh  the  words  in  which  God  has  put  His  seal 
upon  the  atonement  made  by  Phinehas,  "  Behold,  I  give  unto 
\\vni__My_coveiiant  of  peace :  and  he  _shall  have  it,  and  his  seed 
after  him.  even  the  covenant  of  an  everlasting  priesthood"  with- 
out feeling,  that  the  contemplation  of  this  incident  is  intended 
to  be  a  help  toward  our  understanding  of  the  foundation  laid 
in  atonement  for  the  covenant  of  peace,  the  covenant  of  the 
everlasting  priesthood, — a  help  which  prepares  us  to  find  in 
the  moral  and  spiritual  elements  in  the  sufferings  of  Christ, 
the  atoning  power  that  was  in  them  ;  and  to  see  how,  though 
there  is  nothing  of  an  atoning  nature  in  death,  the  wages  of 
sin — not  in  the  death  of  all  who  have  died  since  death  entered 
the  world,  nor  in  all  death  that  may  yet  be  endured  ;  yet  was 
the  death  of  Christ,  who  tasted  death  for  every  man,  because 
of  the  condemnation  of  sin  in  His  spirit,  an  atonement  for  the 
sin  of  the  whole  world. 

When  I  speak  of  the  light  of  the  atonement  itself  1  mean, 
the  atonement  as  accomplished  ;  I  do  not  mean  the  atone- 
ment as  foretold  merely  and  typically  prefigured.  For, 
although  the  typical  sacrifices  of  the  Mosaic  institutes  inti- 
mated the  necessity  for  an  atonement  and  in  some  sense  its 
form,  they  did  not,  for  they  could  not,  reveal  its  nature.  After 
we  have  traced  and  recognisecftne  points  in  which  the  types 
prefigured  the  antitype,  we  have  still  to  inquire  and  to  learn 
by  the  study  of  the  antitype  itself,  what  the  reality  is  of  which 
such  and  such  things  were  the  shadow.  In  the  type  all  was 
arbitrary  and  of  mere  institution.  The  perfection  required  in 
the  victim — a  perfection  according  to  its  own  physical  nature — 
had  no  relation  whatever  to  sin,  but  as  the  type  of  that  moral 
and  spiritual  perfection  in  the  antitype,  of  which  sin  is  the 
negation  and  the  opposite.  In  no  real  sense  did  the  confes- 
sion of  the  sins  of  the  people  over  the  victim,  thus  selected  as 
physically  perfect,  connect  these  sins  with  it,  or  lay  them  upon 


BY  ITS  OWN  LIGHT.  105 

it ;  for  in  no  real  sense  could  it  bear  them.  Therefore,  while 
that  confession  indicated  and  foretold  the  laying  of  men's  sins 
on  Christ,  it  shed  no  light  upon  that  which  these  words 
express, — no  light  either  on  the  capacity  for  bearing  our  sins 
which  was  in  Christ  because  of  His  moral  and  His  spiritual 
perfection,  or  on  that  reality  of  coming  under  their  weight 
which  was  to  be  in  His  consciousness  in  making  His  soul  an 
offering  for  sin.  The  shedding  of  the  blood  of  the  victim 
declared  that  without  shedding  of  blood  was  no  remission  of 
sins  ;  but  the  blood  of  bulls  and  of  goats  could  not  take  away 
sins,  and  therefore,  how  through  the  shedding  of  blood 
remission  of  sins  would  be,  remained  to  be  learned  from  the 
knowledge  of  that  blood  which  really  has  this  virtue. 

It  may  seem  superfluous  to  insist  upon  this  inadequacy  in 
the  type  to  reveal  that  which,  from  the  nature  of  things,  can 
only  be  learned  from  the  antitype.  But  how  often  have  the 
points  of  agreement  between  the  type  and  antitype  been 
dwelt  upon,  as  if  to  see  that  agreement  was  to  understand  the 
atonement,  although  the  fullest  recognition  of  that  agreement 
leaves  the  questions  still  to  be  answered, — Why  must  He  who 
is  to  be  the  atoning  sacrifice  for  sin,  be  Himself  the  Holy  One 
of  God  ?  How^  does  His  being  so  qualify  Him  for  bearing 
our  sins ?  In._w.hats©nse  could  they  be,  and  have  they  been 
laid  upon  Him  ?  Being  laid  upon  Him,  how  is  the  shedding 
of  His  blood  an  atonement  for  them  ?  How  is  His  moral  and 
spiritual  perfection  so  connected  with,  and  present  in  His 
bearing  of  men's  sins,  and  in  His  tasting  death  for  every  man, 
as  that  "  we  have  redemption  through  His  blood,  even  the 
forgiveness  of  sins,"  because  He,  "  through  the  eternal  Spirit, 
offered  Himself  without  spot  to  God  ?" 

These  questions  are  not  answered  by  tracing  the  points  of 
agreement  between  the  type  and  the  antitype,  and  therefore 
the  seeming  progress  made  in  the  understanding  of  the  atone- 
ment by  such  tracing  is  altogether  illusory; — and  if  we  are 
contented  to  remain  in  the  darkness  in  which  it  leaves  us,  we 
are  refusing  to  pass  on  from  the  type  to  the  antitype,  from  the 


*i? 


o6 


THE  ATONEMENT  TO  BE  SEEN 


shadow  to  the  reality.  In  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  it  is 
not  upon  the  coincidence  between  the  type  and  the  antitype, 
but  upon  that  in  which  they  differ,  that  the  Apostle  insists ; — 
and  the  antitype  is  recognised  by  him  as  indeed  the  antitype 
contemplated,   because  it  is  seen  to  have  in  it  that  reality  of 

U  atoning  efficacy  which  was  not  in  the  type.  This  comparing 
and  contrasting  of  course  implies,  that  he  who  engages  in  it  is 

1 1  in  a  light  in  which  he  can  say  what  is  atoning  efficacy.  In 
such  light  he  claims  to  be,  equally  in  judging  that  the  blood  of 
Christ  can  take  away  sin,  as  in  judging  that  the  blood  of 
bulls  and  of  goats  could  not.  Not  that  the  Apostle  knew 
beforehand  what  would  be  an  adequate  atonement,  and  so  was 
qualified  to  judge  of  the  claims  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  to 
that  character ; — but  that,  apprehending  the  atonement  made 
by  Christ  as  it  was  revealed  to  him,  he,  in  the  light  of  the 
atonement  itself,  had  clear  discernment  of  its  adequacy. 

That  light  of  the  atonement  itself,  in  which  the  Apostle 
V  wrote,  pervades  the  whole  argument  of  the  Epistle  tojhe 
Hebrews.  But  the  first  principle  and  essence  of  his  reasoning 
is  contained  in  these  verses  of  the  tenth  chapter,  4  to  10. 
"For  it  is  not  possible  that  the  blood  of  bulls  and  of  goats 
should  take  away  sin.  Wherefore  when  He  cometh  into  the 
world,  He  saith,  Sacrifice  and  offering  thou  wouldest  not,  but 
a  body  hast  thou  prepared  Me.  In  burnt  offerings  and 
Sacrifices  for  sin  thou  hast  had  no  pleasure.  Then  said  I,  Lq, 
I  come  (in  the  volume  of  the  book  it  is  written  of  me),  to  do 
Thy  will,  O  God.  Above  when  He  said,  Sacrifice  and  offering" 
and  burnt  offerings  and  offering  for  sin  thou  wouldest  not, 
neither  hadst  pleasure  therein,  which  are  offered  by  the  law ; 
then  said  He,  Lo,  I  come  to  do  Thy  will,  O  God.  He  taketh 
away  the  first  that  He  may  establish  the  second.  By  the 
which  will  we  are  sanctified,  through  the  offering  of  the  body 
of  Jesus  Christ  once  for  all."  The  will  of  God  which  the 
Son  of  God  came  to  do  and  did,  this  was  the  essence  and 
substance  of  the  atonement,  being  that  in  the  offering  of  the 
body  of  Christ  once  for  all  which  both  made  it  acceptable  to 


BY  ITS  OWN  LIGHT.  IOJ 

Him  who  in  burnt  offerings  and  sacrifices  for  sin  had  had  no 
pleasure,  and  made  it  fit  to  "  sanctify''  those  whose  sin  the 
blood  of  bulls  and  of  goats  could  not  take  away. 

Let  us  then  receive  these  words,  "  Lo,  I  come  to  do  Thy 
will,  O  God,"  as  the  great  key-word  on  the  subject  of  the 
atonement.  The  passage  in  full,  as  it  is  in  the  40th  Psalm,  is, 
"  I  delight  to  do  Thy  will,  O  my  God  :  yea,  Thy  law  is  within 
my  heart.  I  have  preached  righteousness  in  the  great  con- 
gregation. Lo,  I  have  not  refrained  my  lips,  O  Lord,  thou 
knowest.  I  have  not  hid  Thy  righteousness  within  my  heart ; 
I  have  declared  Thy  faithfulness  and  Thy  salvation  :  I  have 
not  concealed  Thy  loving  kindness  and  Thy  truth  from  the 
great  congregation,"  7 — 11 ;  and  I  quote  the  context  of  the 
psalm  because  it  brings  out  so  clearly,  that  the  will  of  God 
contemplated  is  that  will  which  immediately  connects  itself 
in  our  thoughts  with  what  God  is,  that  will,  the  nature  and 
character  of  which  we  express  when  we  say,  "  God  is  good," — 
or,  explaining  what  we  mean  by  good,  say,  "  God  is  holy,  God 
is  true,  God  is  just,  God  is  love."  This  expression  of  the  pur- 
pose of  the  Son  of  God  in  coming  into  this  world,  is  therefore 
coincident  with  His  own  statement  of  His  work  when  in  the 
world,  viz.,  "  I  have  declared  Thy  name,  and  will  declare  it." 
John  xvii.  26.  Some  have  understood  the  will  of  God  here  to 
mean  the  plan  of  redemption,  and  so  the  purpose  expressed 
would  be  the  purpose  to  execute  that  plan.  So  understood,  of 
course,  the  words  would  throw  no  light  on  the  nature  of  the 
atonement,  being  only  the  declaration  of  the  intention  of 
making  it.  But  the  mind  of  the  Apostle  is  manifestly  occupied 
with  that  in  the  work  of  Christ  which  caused  the  shedding  of 
His  blood  to  have  a  virtue  which  was  not  in  that  of  bulls  and 
goats,  which  he  represents  as  being  the  will  of  God  done,  the 
mind  of  God  manifested,  the  name  of  the  Father  declared  by 
the  Son. 

We  have  therefore  to  trace  out  the  fulfilment  of  this  pur- 
pose, Lo,  I  come  to  do  Thy  will.  In  what  relation  to  God  and 
to  man  did  it  place  the  Lord  as  partaking  in  humanity? — 


108  THE  ATONEMENT  TO  BE  SEEN 

especially,  in  what  relation  to  men's  sins  and  the  evils  conse- 
quent upon  sin  to  which  they  were  subject  ?  How  did  it  imply 
His  having  all  men's  sins  laid  upon  Him, — His  bearing  them 
as  an  atoning  sacrifice, — His  being  an  accepted  sacrifice, — His 
obtaining  everlasting  redemption  ? 

It  will  simplify  our  task  in  considering  Christ's  doing  of  the 
will  of  God,  if  we  remember  the  relation  of  the  second  com- 
mandment to  the  first,  as  being  "like  it;"  that  is  to  say,  that 
the  spirit  of  sonship  in  which  consists  the  perfect  fulfilment  of 
the  first  commandment,  is  one  with  the  spirit  of  brotherhood 
which  is  the  fulfilment  of  the  second.  Loving  the  Father  with 
all  His  heart  and  mind  and  soul  and  strength,  the  Saviour  loved 
His  brethren  as  Himself.  He,  the  perfect  elder  brother, 
unlike  the  elder  brother  in  the  parable,  sympathised  in  all  the 
yearnings  of  the  Father's  heart  over  His  prodigal  brethren ; 
and  the  love  which  in  the  Father  desired  to  be  able  to  say  of 
each  of  them,  My  son  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again  ;  he  was 
lost,  and  is  found  ;  in  Him  equally  desired  to  be  able  to  say, 
My  brother  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again  j  he  was  lost,  and  is 
found.  President  Edwards,  in  tracing  out  the  fitness  and 
suitableness  of  the  mediation  of  our  Lord,  dwells  upon  His 
interest  in  the  glory  of  God  with  whom  He  was  to  intercede, 
and  because  of  which  He  could  propose  nothing  derogatory 
to  it ;  and  His  love  to  those  for  whom  He  was  to  intercede, 
'  because  of  which  He  felt  so  identified  with  triSnrthat  what 
touched  them  touched  Him.  There  is  something  which  surely 
commends  itself  to  us  in  this  recognition  of  love  as  that  which 
identifies  the  Saviour  with  those  to  whom  He  is  a  Saviour,  and 
this,  as  Edwards  traces  it  out,  both  in  His  own  consciousness 
and  in  the  Father's  thoughts  of  Him  as  the  Mediator.  May 
we  not  go  further  and  say,  that  as  love  was  thus  a  fitness  for 
the  office,  so  it  necessitated  the  undertaking  of  the  office, 
moving  to  the  exercise  of  this  high  function,  as  well  as  qualify- 
ing for  it  ?  And  seeing  love  to  all  men  as  that  law  of  love 
under  which  Christ  was,  must  we  not  both  wonder  and  regret, 
that  his  deeply  interesting  thoughts  in  this  region  did  not  lead 


BY  ITS  OWN  LIGHT. 


109 


Edwards  to  see,  that  by  the  very  law  of  the  spirit  of  the  life 
that  was  in  Christ  Jesus  He  must  needs  come  under  the 
burden  of  the  sins  of  all  men — become  the  Saviour  of  all 
men,  and,  loving  them  as  He  loved  Himself,  seek  for  them 
that  they  should  partake  in  His  own  life  in  the  Father's  favour^ 
— that  eternal  life  which  He  had  with  the  Father  before  the 
world  was  ? 

When  God  sent  His  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh 
to  accomplish  our  redemption,  the  Apostle  says  He  sent  Him 
as  "  a  sacrifice  for  sin."  (Romans  viii.  3,  margin.)  To  send 
Him  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh  was  to  make  Him  a  sacrifice 
for  sin,  for  it  was  to  lay  the  burden  of  our  sins  upon  Him. 
Thus  related  to  us,  while  by  love  identified  with  us,  the  Son  of 
God  necessarily  came  under  all  our  burdens,  and  especially 
our  great  burden — sin.  And  this  not  merely  as  President 
'Edwards  represents  our  sins  as  being  laid  upon  Christ,  in  that 
a  vivid  sense  of  their  evil  oppressed  His  Holy  Spirit,  nor  even 
in  that  through  love  to  us  (as  he  speaks  with  reference  to  the 
elect)  the  realisation  of  the  misery  to  which  we  were  exposed 
would  give  Him  pain ;  but  that  living  the  life  of  love  in 
humanity  He  must  needs  care  for  all  humanity,  for  all  partak- 
ing in  humanity  even  as  for  Himself  :  so  being  affected  by  the 
evil  of  the  life  of  self,  and  enmity  in  humanity  according  to 
His  own  consciousness  of  the  life  of  love, — and  at  once  con- 
demning that  life  of  self,  desiring  its  destruction,  and  feeling 
Himself  by  love  devoted  to  the  work  of  delivering  man  from 
it,  at  whatever  cost  to  Himself.  Thus  moved  by  love,  and  in 
the  strength  of  love,  must  we  conceive  of  the  Saviour  as 
taking  upon  Him  all  our  burden,  undertaking  our  cause  Jo  ^do 
and  suffer  all  that  was  implied  in  obtaining  for  us  redemption. 
The  love  that  came  into  humanity  had  manifested  its  own 
nature  even  in  coming  into  humanity — its  self-sacrificing  nature; 
though  this  we  can  less  understand  or  measure.  Being  in 
humanity,  it  acts  according  to  its  own  nature,  and  must  needs 
bear  our  burden  and  work  and  suffer  for  our  salvation,  and 
this  in  ways  which  we  who  are  human  may  understand,  and 


HO        THE  ATONEMENT  BY  ITS  OWN  LIGHT. 


shall  understand   in  the    measure  in   which  the  life  of  love 
becomes  our  life. 

The  active  outgoing  of  the  self-sacrificing  love  in  which  the 
Son  of  God  wrought  out  our  redemption  presents  these  two 
aspects,  first,  His  dealing  with  men  on  the  part  of  God ;  and, 
secondly,  His  dealing  with  God  on  behalf  of  men.  These 
together  constitute  the  atonement  equally  in  its  retrospective 
and  prospective  bearing.  Therefore  it  jvill  be  necessary  to 
contemplate  them  not  only  severally,  but  also,  first  in  reference 
to  our  condition  as  sinners  under  the  condemnation  of  a 
broken  law,  and  then  in  reference  to  the  purpose  of  God  to 
bestow  on  us  the  adoption  of  sons.  The  unity  of  the  life  that 
was  in  Christ  as  love  to  God  and  love  to  men, — the  unity  of 
the  ends  contemplated  in  His  sacrifice  of  Himself,  viz.  the 
glory  of  God  and  the  salvation  of  men, — the  unity  also  of  the 
intermediate  results,  in  that  the  same  work  which  was  an 
adequate  ground  on  which  to  rest  our  being  taken  from  under 
the  law,  making  that  consistent  with  the  honour  of  the  law 
and  the  character  of  the  lawgiver,  was  also  the  adequate  pre- 
paration for  our  receiving  the  adoption  of  sons  ;  this  pervading 
unity,  which  is  "  the  simplicity  that  is  in  Christ,"  will  not  be 
veiled  by  this  orderly  consideration  of  the  different  aspects  of 
the  works  of  Christ,  while  it  will  prepare  us  for  the  closer  con- 
sideration of  the  details  of  the  sacred  history,  at  once  shedding 
light  on  these  details  and  being  confirmed  by  them. 


Ill 


CHAPTER  VI. 

RETROSPECTIVE   ASPECT   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

'T'HE  atonement  considered  in  its  retrospective  aspects  is — 
I.  Christ's  dealing  with  men  on  the  part  of  God. 

It  was  in  our  Lord  the  natural  outcoming  of  the  life  of  love 
— of  love~to  the~Father  and  of  love  to  us — to  shew  us  the  ( 
Father,  to  vindicate  the  Father's  name,  to  witness  for  the 
excellence  of  that  will  of  God  against  which  we  were  rebelling, 
to  witness  for  the  trustworthiness  of  that  Father's  heart  in  which 
we  were  refusing  to  put  confidence,  to  witness  for  the  unchang- 
ing character  of  that  love  in  which  there  was  hope  for  us, 
though  we  had  destroyed  ourselves. 

This  witness-bearing  for  God,  ("  I  r^ve_giyen  Him  for  a 
witness  to  the  people/')  was  accomplished  in  the  personal 
perfection  that  was  in  Christ,  His  manifested  perfection  in 
humanity,  that  is  to  say,  the  perfection  of  His  own  following 
of  the  Father  as  a  dear  child,  and  the  perfection  of  His 
brotherly  love  in  His  walk  with  men.  His  love  and  His  trust 
towards  His  Father,  His  love  and  His  longsuffering  towards 
His  brethren — the  latter  being  presented  to  our  faith  in  its 
oneness  with  the  former — were  together  what  He  contem- 
plated when  He  said,  "  He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the 
Father." 

This  witness-bearing  for  the  Father  was  a  part  of  the  self- 
sacrifice  of  Christ.  The  severity  of  the  pressure  of  our  sins 
upon  the  Spirit   of  Christ   was   necessarily   greatly   increased 


112  RETROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

through  that  living  contact  with  the  enmity  of  the  carnal 
|  mind  to  God  into  which  Christ  was  brought,  in  being  to  men  a 
/  living  epistle  of   the  grace  of   God.     His  honouring  of   the 

Father  caused  men  to  dishonour  Him, — His  manifestation  of 

1  brotherly  love  was  repaid  with  hatred, — His  perfect  walk  in 
the  sight  of  men  failed  to  commend  either  His  Father  or  Him- 
self,— His  professed  trust  in  the  Father  was  cast  up  to  Him, 
not  being  believed,  and  the  bitter  complaint  was  wrung  from 
Him — "  reproach  hath  broken  my  heart." 

Not  that  His  task  in  doing  the  Father's  will,  "not  hiding 
His  righteousness  within  His  heart,"  but  "  declaring  His  faith- 
fulness and  His  salvation,"  was  altogether  cheerless  :  on  the 
contrary,  the  Man  of  sorrows  could  speak  to  the  chosen  com- 
panions of  His  path,  those  who  knew  Him  most  nearly,  of  a 
peace  which  they  had  witnessed  in  Him — nay,  of  a  joy,  a  peace 
and  a  joy" as" to  which  He  could  expect  that  they  would  receive 
as  the  intimation  of  a  precious  legacy  the  being  told  that  these 
He  would  leave  with  them, — could  even  expect  that  the 
prospect  of  having  these  abiding  with  them  would  reconcile 
them  to  that  tribulation  which  was  to  come  to  them  through 
their  relation  to  Him.  That  which  He  had  presented  to  their 
faith  would  not  have  been  a  true  and  successful  witnessing  for 
the  Father,  had  this  not  been  so  ; — it  would  have  been  less 
than  that  of  the  Psalmist,  "  O  taste  and  see  that  God  is  good." 
Whatever  sorrow  may  have  been  seen  as  borne  by  the  Son  of 
God  in  confessing  His  Father's  name  in  our  sinful  world — and 
this  could  not  have  been  but  in  sorrow — yet  must  a  joyjieeper 
than  the  sorrow  have  been  present,  as  belonging  to  that  one- 
ness with  the  Father  which  that  living  confession  implied; 
and  to  have  hidden  that  joy  would  have  been  to  have  marred 
that  confession, — leaving  imperfect  that  condemnation  of  sin 
which  is  by  the  manifestation  of  the  life  that  is  in  God's  favour, 
and  the  shining  forth  of  which  in  Christ  is  the  light  of  life  to 
man.  Therefore  the  peace,  the  joy  of  which  our  Lord  speaks 
as  what  the  disciples  had  witnessed  in  Him,  and  what  would 
be   recalled  to  them  when   He  used   the    expressions,   "  My 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

important    element  in 


113 
His 


peace,"    "  My  joy,"    were  a  most 
declaration  of  the  Father's  name. 

But  not  less  important  as  an  element  of  that  declaration,  not 
less  essential  to  its  perfection,  were  the  sorrows  of  the  Man  of 
sorrows;  of  which  also  they  were  the  chosen  witnesses.  It  has 
been  said,  "  If  God  should  appear  as  a  man  on  this  sinful  earth, 
how  could  it  be  but  as  a  man  of  sorrows?"  The  natural  out- 
ward expression  of  Christ's  inward  sorrow  from  the  constant 
pressure  of  our  sin  and  misery  on  His  spirit — a  pressure  under 
which,  as  God  in  our  nature,  with  the  mind  of  God  in  suffering 
flesh  He  could  not  but  be — would  of  itself  have  been  enough 
to  justify  the  appeal  to  those  who  saw  Him  nearly,  "  Look, 
and  see  if  there  be  any  sorrow  like  unto  my  sorrow  ?"  But  to 
the  vindication  of  the  name  of  God,  and  to  the  condemnation 
of  the  sin  of  man,  that  actual  meeting  of  the  eternal  love  with 
the  enmity  of  the  carnal  mind,  which  took  place  when  Christ 
came  to  men  in  the  Father's  name — in  the  fellowship  of  the 
Father's  love,  was  necessary  ;  and  therefore,  however  much  it 
added  to  Christ's  suffering  as  bearing  our  sins,  it  was  permitted ; 
and  the  Father  ordered  the  path  in  which  He  led  the  Son  so  as 
to  give  full  and  perfect  development  and  manifestation  to  the 
self-sacrificing  life  of  love  that  was  in  Christ,  fulness  and  per- 
fection to  His  declaration  of  the  Father's  name. 

We  have  been  prepared  for  recognising  our  Lord's  honouring 
of  the  Father  in  the  sight  of  men,  as  an  element  in  the  atone- 
ment in  its  retrospective  aspect,  by  the  power  to  arrest  the 
course  of  judgment,  and  stay  the  plague  which  expressed  the 
divine  wrath,  found  in  that  outcoming  of  zeal  for  God,  and 
sympathy  in  His  condemnation  of  sin,  by  which  Phinehas,  the 
son  of  Eleazar,  made  atonement  for  the  children  of  Israel.  If 
the  principle  of  the  divine  procedure  in  that  case  be  recognised, 
we  shall  have  no  difficulty  in  seeing  the  place  which  the  perfect 
zeal  for  the  Father's  honour,  the  living  manifestation  of  perfect 
sympathy  in  the  Father's  condemnation  of  sin,  the  perfect 
vindication  of  the  unselfish  and  righteous  character  of  that 
condemnation  as  the  mind  of  Him  who  is  love,  which  were 


. 


1 14  RETROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

presented  to  men  in  the  life  of  Christ,  being  perfected  in  His 
death, — we  shall,  I  say,  have  no  difficulty  in  seeing  the  place 
which  this  dealing  of  Christ  with  men  on  the  part  of  God  has 
in  the  work  of  redemption. 

If  we  at  all  realise  the  cost  to  Christ,  we  can  have  no  diffi- 
culty in  contemplating  as  included  in  the  expression,  "a  sacrifice 
for  sin,"  what  Christ  endured  in  this  witnessing  for  God.  But 
I  am  anxious  that  the  way  in  which  the  sufferings  of  Christ  now 
before  us  entered  into  tKe  atonement,  and  not  the  fact  only 
that  they  did  enter  into  it,  may  be  distinctly  understood, — 
that  it  was  as  being  necessary  to  the  perfection  of  His  witness- 
bearing  for  the  Father.  For,  while  these  sufferings  have  also 
received  a  place  in  the  atonement,  in  the  systems  which  have 
been  considered  above  as  forms  of  Calvinism,  it  has  been  on 
the  entirely  different  ground  that  they  were  a  part  of  what 
our  Lord  endured  in  bearing  the  punishment  of  our  sins  ; 
and  I  have  already  urged  the  impossibility  of  regarding  as  penal 
the  sorrows  of  holy  love  endured  in  realising  our  sin  and 
misery — the  impossibility  of  believing  that  He  who  said, 
"  Rivers  of  water  run  down  mine  eyes,  because  men  keep  not 
thy  law,"  could  have  felt  the  pain  of  the  holy  sorrow  which 
caused  His  tears  to  flow,  to  have  been  penal  suffering,  seeing 
that  that  pain  was  endured  in  sympathy  with  God,  and  in 
the  strength  of  the  faith  of  the  divine  acceptance  of  that 
sympathy. 

But  apart  from  the  objection  to  our  regarding  the  sufferings 
of  Christ  now  contemplated  as  penal  presented  by  the  very 
nature  of  these  sufferings,  is  there  any  reason  to  feel,  that  they 
would  be  a  more  fitting  element  in  the  atonement  had  they 
been  penal,  than  as  being,  what  we  know  they  were,  the  per- 
fecting of  the  Son's  witnessing  for  the  Father  ?  The  distinction 
between  penal  sufferings  endured  in  meeting  a  demand  of 
divine  justice,  and  sufferings  which  are  themselves  the  expres- 
sion of  the  divine  mind  regarding  our  sins,  and  a  manifestation 
by  the  Son  of  what  our  sins  are  to  the  Father's  heart,  is  indeed 
very  broad ;    and  I  know  that   the    habit  of   thought   which 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 


"5 


prevails  on  the  subject  of  the  atonement  is  such  as  will  cause 
minds,  under  the  power  of  that  habit,  to  think  it  more  natural 
to  connect  remission  of  sins  with  sufferings  having  the  former, 
than  with  sufferings  having  the  latter  character.  But,  inde- 
pendent of  the  necessity  which  the  nature  of  the  sufferings 
which  we  are  considering  impose  upon  us  to  refuse  to  them  the 
former  character — while  we  know  that  they  certainly  had  the  i 
latter — is  not  the  habit  of  mind  which  creates  any  difficulty  / 
here,  delusive  ?  We  are  accustomed  to  hear  it  said,  that  the 
law  which  men  had  violated  must  be  honoured,  and  the  sincerity 
and  consistency  of  the  lawgiver  must  be  vindicated.  But 
what  a  vindicating  of  the  divine  name,  and  of  the  character  of 
the  lawgiver,  are  the  sufferings  now  contemplated,  considered 
as  themselves  the  manifestation  in  humanity  of  what  our  sins 
are  to  God,  compared  to  that  to  which  they  are  reduced  if 
conceived  of  as  a  punishment  inflicted  by  God  !  No  doubt, 
even  in  this  view,  there  would  remain  to  us  a  ray  of  light  in 
the  love  that  is  contented  to  endure  the  infliction ;  but,  however 
precious  the  thought  of  love  willing  so  to  suffer,  the  full  revela- 
tion of  God  is  not  that  divine  love  has  been  contented  thus  to 
suffer,  but  that  the  suffering  is  the  suffering  of  divine  love 
suffering  from  our  sins  according  to  its  own  nature  ;  a  suffering, 
therefore,  in  relation  to  which  the  sufferer  could  say,  "  He  that/1 
hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father." 

II.  But  Christ's  honouring  the  Father  in  the  sight  of  men, 
which  was  His  dealing  with  men  on  the  part  of  God,  is  only 
one  aspect  of  His  mediatorial  work.  We  have  to  consider 
also  His  dealing  with  God  on  behalf  of  men.  And  this, 
indeed,  is  the  region  in  which  penal  suffering~should  meet  us, 
if  penal  suffering  had  entered  into  the  atonement.  We  cannot 
conceive  of  the  Son  of  God  as  enduring  a  penal  infliction  in 
the  very  act  of  honouring  His  Father.  But  when  we  contem- 
plate Him  as  approaching  God  on  behalf  of  man, — when  we 
contemplate  Him  as  meeting  the  divine  mind  in  its  aspect 
towards  sin  and  sinners,  and  as  dealing  with  the  righteous 
wrath  of  God  against  sin,  interposing  Himself  between  sinners 


-f 


116 


RETROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 


.  y- 


and  the  consequences  of  that  righteous  wrath, — we  feel,  that 
here  we  have  come  to  that  which  men  have  contemplated  when 
they  have  conceived  of  Christ  as  satisfying  divine  justice  in 
respect  of  its  claim  for  vengeance  upon  our  sins.  Here,  there- 
fore, we  feel  was  the  place  for  outcoming  of  wrath  upon  the 
Mediator,  and  penal  infliction,  if  such  there  had  been, — and, 
as  such  there  has  not  been,  that  here  is  the  place  in  which  we 
should  find  that  dealing  of  the  Mediator  with  the  divine  wrath 
against  sin  which  has  had  the  result  which  men  have  referred 
to  His  assumed  bearing  of  the  punishment  of  sin ;  and  which, 
being  understood,  will  be  felt  to  meet  all  that  was  right,  and 
according  to  truth,  in  the  feelings  which  men  have  expressed 
by  the  words,  "  appeasing  divine  wrath," — "  expiating  the  guilt 
of  sin." 

I  say,  "  all  that  was  according  to  truth  in  these  expressions," 
for  there  was  truth  in  them,  though  mingled  with  error — how 
much  error,  the  separating  of  the  truth  will  best  shew.  Butthe 
wrath  of  God  against  sin  is  a  reality,  however  men  have  erred  in 
their  thoughts  as  to  how  that  wrath  was  to  be  appeased.  Nor 
is  the  idea  that  satisfaction  was  due  to  divine  justice  a  delu- 
sion, however  far  men  have  wandered  from  the  true  concep- 
tion of  what  would  meet  its  righteous  demand.  And  if  so, 
then  Christ,  in  dealing  with  God  on  behalf  of  men,  must  be 
conceived  of  as  dealing  with  the  righteous  wrath  of  God  against 
sin,  and  as  accordi?ig  to  it  that  which  was  due:  and  this  would 
necessarily  precede  His  intercession  for  us. 

It  is  manifest,  if  we  consider  it,  that  Christ's  own  long- 
suffering  love  was  the  revelation  to  those  who  should  see  the 
Father  in  •  the  Son,  of  that  forgiving  love  in  God  to  which 
Christ's  intercession  for  men  would  be  addressed ;  and  so  also, 
I  believe,  does  Christ's  own  condemnation  of  our  sins,  and 
His  holy  sorrow  because  of  them,  indicate  that  dealing  with 
the  aspect  of  trie  divine  mind  towards  sin  which  prepared  the 
way  for  intercession. 

That  oneness  of  mind  with  the  Father,  which  towards  man 
took  the  form  of  condemnation  of  sin,  would  in  the  Son's  deal- 


yv^V^ 


rs* 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 


117 


f^i 


ing  with  the  Father  in  relation  to  our  sins,  take  the  form  of  a 
perfect  confession  of  our  sins.     This  confession,  as  to  its  own 
nature,  must  nave  been  a  perfect  Amen  in_  hunmnity  to  the  judg- 
ment of  God  on  the,  sin  of  man.     Such  an  Amen  was  due  in  the 
truth   of  things.      He  who   was   the    Truth    could  not   be   in 
humanity  and  not  utter  it, — and  it  was  necessarily  a  first  step 
in  dealing  with  the  Father  on  our  behalf.      He  who  would 
intercede  for  us  must  begin  with  confessing  our  sins.     This  all 
will  at  once  perceive.     But  let  us  weigh  this  confession  of  our 
sins  by  the  Son  of  God  in  humanity.      And  I  do  not  mean 
in  reference  to   the  suffering  it   implies  viewed  as   suffering. 
Christ's  love  to  the  Father,  to  whom  He  thus  confessed  the 
sin  of  His  brethren, — His  love  to  His  brethren  whose  sin  He 
confessed, — along  with  that  conscious  oneness  of  will  with  the 
Father  in  humanity,  in  the  light  of  which  the  exceeding  evil  of 
man's   alienation  from  God   was   realised ;   these   must  have 
rendered    His    confession   of    our   sins   before   the   Father  a 
peculiar  development  of  the  holy  sorrow  in  which  He  bore  the 
burden  of  our  sins  ;  and  which,  like  "His  sufferings  in  confessing 
His  Father  before  men,  had  a  severity  and  intensity  of  its  own. 
But,  apart  from  the  question  of  the  suffering  present  in  that 
confession  of  our  sins,  and  the  depth  of  meaning  which  it  gives 
to  the  expression,   "a  sacrifice  for  sin,"  let  us  consider  this 
Amen  from  the  depths  of  the  humanity  of  Christ  to  the  divine 
condemnation  of  sin.      What  is  it  in  relation  to  God's  wrath 
against  sin  ?     What  place  has  it  in  Christ's  dealing  with  that 
wrath  ?     I  answer  :  He  who  so  responds  to  the  divine  wrath 
against  sin,  saying,  "  Thou  art  righteous,  O  Lord,  who  judgest 
so,"  is  necessarily  receiving  the  full  apprehension  and  realisa- 
tion of  that  wrath,  as  well  as  of  that  sin  against  which  it  comes 
forth  into  His  soul  and  spirit,  into  the  bosom  of  the  divine 
humanity,  and,  so  receiving  it,  He  responds  to  it  with  a  perfect 
response, — a  response  from  the  depths  of  that  divine  humanity, 
— and  in  that  perfect  response  He  absorbs,  it.     For  that  response 
has  all  the  elements  of  a  perfect  repentance  in  humanity  for  all 
the  sin  of  man, — a  perfect   sorrow     a    perfect    contrition — all 


\k  viz 


** 


w 


nu  I 


>> 


Il8  RETROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 


the  elements  of  such  a  repentance,  and  that  in  absolute  per- 
fection, all — excepting  the  personal  consciousness  of  sin  ; — and 
by  that  perfect_response  in  Amen  to  the  mind  of  God  in  relation 
I  tojinjs  the  wrath  of^God_ rightly  met,  and  that  is  accorded  to 
//  divmejusticewhich  is  its  due,  and  could  alone  satisfy  it. 

In  contending  "  that  sm^nmsTbe"  pmn^h^oTwTth~air infinite 
punishment,"  President  Edwards  says,*  that  "  God  could  not 
be  just  to  Himself  without  this  vindication,  unless  there  could 
be  such  a  thing  as  a  repentance,  humiliation  and  sorrow  for 
this  (viz.  sin),  proportionable  to  the  greatness  of  the  majesty 
despised," — for  that  there  must  needs  be.  "  either  an  equiva- 
lent punishment  or  an  equivalent  sorrow  and  repehtance"**^- 
"  so,"  he  proceeds,   "  sin   must  be  punished  with  an  infinite 
punishment,"  thus  assuming  that  the  alternative  of  "  an  equiva- 
lent sorrow  and  repentance  "  was  out  of  the  question.     But, 
upon  the  assumption  of  that  identification  of  Himself  with 
those  whom   He  came  to   save,  on  the  part  of  the  Saviour, 
which  is  the  foundation  of  Edwards'  whole  system,  it  may  at 
the  least  be  said,  that  the  Mediator  had  the  two  alternatives 
open  to  His  choice, — either  to  endure  for  sinners  an  equiva- 
lent punishment,  or  to  experience  in  reference  to  their  sin,  and 
present  to  God  on  their  behalf,  an  adequate  sorrow  and  repent- 
ance.    Either  of  these  courses  should  be  regarded  by  Edwards 
as  equally  securing  the  vindication  of  the  majesty  and  justice 
of  God  in  pardoning  sin.       But  the  latter  equivalent,  which 
also  is  surely  the  higher  and  more  excellent,  being  a  moral  and 
spiritual  satisfaction,  was,  as  we  have  now  seen,  of  necessity 
present  in  Christ's   dealing  with   the  Father  on   our  behalf. 
Therefore,  to  contend  for  the  former  also  would  be  to  contend 
for  two  equivalents.     This  of  course  Edwards  had  no  intention 
of  doing.     For,  though  the  thought  of  that  moral  and  spiritual 
atonement  which  would  be  presented  to  God  in  the  adequate 
confession  of  sin,  passed  through  his  mind,  he  did  not  recog- 
nise the  presence  of  this  "  equivalent  repentance  "  in  the  work 
of  Christ.      He  had  set  out  with  the  assumption  that  Christ 

*  Satisfaction  for  Sin,  Ch.  II.  1-3. 


I 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  1 19 

came  to  bear  the  punishment  of  our  sins,  and  to  work  out  a 
righteousness  to  be  imputed  to  us ;  and,  as  we  have  seen  that 
the  latter  part  of  this  assumption  hindered  his  so  seeing  the 
Father  in  the  Son  as  to  recognise  that  law  of  love  to  all  men 
which  was  fulfilled  in  Christ,  as  in  truth  the  law  of  God's  own 
being,  so  here  we  see  that,  in  consequence  of  the  former  part 
of  that  assumption,  it  has  come  to  pass,  that  notwithstanding 
all  his  deep  and  earnest  study  of  the  work  of  redemption,  and 
notwithstanding  his  feeling  constrained  to  recognise  moral  and 
spiritual  elements  as  alone  present  in  the  sufferings  of  Christ, 
the  thought  of  an  atonement  for  sin  by  an  equivalent  repent- 
ance has  suggested  itself  to  him  only  in   connexion  with  the 
manifest   impossibility  of  such  a  repentance  being  presented 
by  the  sinner  himself  to  God  in  expiation  of  his  guilt.     And  in 
the  connexion  in  which  the  idea  of  repentance  as  an  expiation 
for  sin  presented  itself  to  the  mind  of  Edwards,  his  conclusion 
was  just.     A  condemnation  and  confession  of  sin  in  humanity 
which  should  be  a  real  Amen  to  the  divine  condemnation  of  I 
sin,  and  commensurate  with  its  evil  and  God's  wrath  against  it,    . 
only  became  possible  through  the  incarnation  of  the  Son.  of  [/ 
Qod.     But  the  incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God  not  only  made 
possible  such  a  moral  and  spiritual  expiation  for  sin  as  that  of 
which  the    thought    thus   visited    the  mind    of  Edwards,   but  ^^ 
indeed  caused  that  it  miist  be.     Without  the  assumption  of  an  /* 
imputation  of  our  guilt,  and  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  un- 
broken consciousness  of  personal  separation  from  our  sins,  jthe 
Son  of  God,  bearing  us  and  our  sins  on  His  heart  before  the      j    1/ 
Father^must  needs  respond  to  the  Father's  judgment  on  our 
sins,  with  that  confession  of  their  evil  and  of  the  righteousness 
of  the  wrath  of  God  against  them^  and  holy  sorrow  because  of 
them,  which  were  due,  due  in  the  truth  of  things,  due  on  our 
behalf  though  we  could  not  render  it,  due  from  Him  as  in  our 
nature  and  our  true  brother ; — what   He  must  needs  feel  in 
Himself  because  of  the  holiness  and  love  which  were  in  Him — 
what  He  must  needs  utter  to  the  Father  in  expiation  of  our 
sins  when  He  would  make  intercession  for  us. 


I 


120  RETROSPECTI 

I  have  said  that  in  approaching  the  dealing  of  Christ  with 
God  on  behalf  of  men,  we  approach  the  region  in  which 
we  should  have  met  penal  infliction  as  endured  by  Christ  for 
our  sins,  had  such  infliction  entered  into  the  atonement ;  and, 
a  las  it  has  not,  where  we  should  see  that,  whatever  else  it  was, 
which  has  been  Christ's  dealing  with  God's  righteous  wrath 
against  our  sins.  What  I  believe  that  dealing  to  have  been, 
I  have,  I  trust,  expressed  with  sufficient  clearness, — while 
I  have  laboured  more  to  illustrate  the  7iature  of  this  expiation 
*  by  confessions    of  our   sins,    than    the    intensity   of   suffering 

\to  the  soul  of  Christ  thus  made  an  offering  for  sin,  which  it 
involved. 
Yet  is  it  needful  that  we  should,  in  realising  the  elements 
of  these  sufferings,  endeavour  to  realise  also  their  intensity, — 
that  it  was  according  to  the  perfection  of  the  divine  mind  in 
the  sufferer,  and  the  capacity  of  suffering  which  is  in  suffering 
flesh.  And  this  mediation,  as  I  trust  the  reader  will  feel, 
is  a  very  different  thing  from  weighing  the  sufferings  of 
Christ  in  scales  against  the  sufferings  of  the  damned.  That 
belongs  to  the  following  out  of  the  conception  of  the  Son  of 
God  suffering  the  punishment  of  our  sins.  But  what  I 
contemplate  is  the  following  out  of  the  conception  of  the  Son 
■  of  God  suffering  in  suffering  flesh  that  which  is  the  perfect 
)  response  of  the  divine  holiness  and  divine  love  in  humanity 
|  to  the  aspect  of  the  divine  mind  in  the  Father  towards  the  sins 
of  men.  No  thought  unworthy  of  the  faith  that  the  sufferer  is 
God  in  our  nature  comes  through  exalting  our  conceptions  of 
the  measure  of  the  suffering  endured  on  account  of  sins,  when 
such  exalting  is  thus  but  the  raising  of  our  apprehensions  of 
what  our  sin  is  to  the  heart  of  God. 

And  I  may  here  refer  to  what  has  been  urged  by  some  as  a 
reason  for  holding  that  the  sufferings  of  Christ  were  penal,  viz., 
that  otherwise  there  is  no  explanation  of  the  sufferings  of  one 
who  was  without  sin,  as  endured  under  the  righteous  govern- 
ment of  God.  Do  we  never  see  suffering  that  we  must  explain 
on  some  other  principle  than  this  ?     Surely  the  tears  of  holy 


1 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  12 1 

sorrow  shed  over  the  sins  of  others — the  tears,  for  example, 
of  a  godly  parent  over  a  prodigal  child,  are  not  penal,  nor  if 
shed  before  God  in  prayer,  and  acknowledged  in  the  merciful 
answer  of  prayer  in  God's  dealing  with  that  prodigal,  are  they 
therefore  to  be  conceived  of  as  having  been  penal.  But  the 
fact  is,  that  the  truth  that  God  grieves  over  our  sins,  is  not 
so  soon  received  into  the  heart  as  that  God  punishes  sin, — 
and  yet,  the  faith  that  He  so  grieves  is  infinitely  more  im- 
portant, as  having  power  to  work  holiness  in  us;  than  the  faith 
that  He  so  punishes,  however  important.  But  there  is  much 
less  spiritual  apprehension  necessary  to  the  faith  that  God 
punishes  sin,  than  to  the  faith  that  our  sins  do  truly  grieve 
God.  Therefore,  men  more  easily  believe  that  Christ's  suffer- 
ings shew  how  God  can  punish  sin,  than  that  these  sufferings 
are  the  divine  feelings  in  relation  to  sin,  made  visible  to  us  by 
being  present  in  suffering  flesh.  Yet,  however  the  former  may 
terrify,  the  latter  alone  can  purify,  because  the  latter  alone  per- 
fectly reveals,  and  in  revealing  vindicates  the  name  and 
character  of  God,  condemning  us  in  our  own  eyes,  and  laying 
us  prostrate  in  the  dust  because  we  have  sinned  against  such 
a  God.  The  entrance  of  sin  has  been  the  entrance  of  sorrow, 
— not  to  the  sinful  only,  and  as  the  punishment  of  sin,  but  also 
to  the  holy  and  the  loving,  and  as  what  holiness  and  love  must 
feel  in  the  presence  of  sin.  That  such  suffering  as  the  suffer- 
ing of  Christ  should  have  existed  in  the  universe  of  God  in 
connexion  with  innocence  and  holiness,  moral  and  spiritual 
perfection,  must,  indeed,  be  felt  to  suggest  a  solemn  question, 
and  one  which  must  receive  an  answer,  if  we  are  to  be  in  a 
condition  to  glorify  God  in  contemplating  that  suffering.  The 
answer  that  it  was  penal,  is  precluded  by  the  nature  of  the 
suffering  itself.  Yet,  that  it  was  for  sin  is  also  implied  in  that 
very  nature,  and  for  the  sin  of  others  than  "the  sufferer,  for 
He  was  without  sin ;  therefore  was  it  vicarious,  expiatory, 
an  atonement, — an  atonement  for  sin  as  distinguished  from  the 
punishment  of  sin. 

And  with  this  distinction,  how  much  light  enters  the  mind  ! 


C^ 


122 


RETROSPECTIVE  ASPECT  ^V^L,  J^^T 


^  / 


We  are  now  able  to  realise  that  the  suffering  we  contemplate 
/|is  divine,  while  it  is  human;  and_that  God  is  revealed  in  it 
and  not  merely  in  connexion  with  it;  GocFs  righteousness  and 
condemnation  bT  sin,  being  in  the  suffering,  and  not  merely 
what  demands  it, — God's  love  also  being  in  the  suffering,  and 
not  merely  what  submits  to  it.  Christ's  suffering  being  thus 
to  us  a  form  which  the  divine  life  in  Christ  took  in  connexion 
with  the  circumstances  in  which  He  was  placed,  and  not  a 
coming  on  Him  as  from  without,  such  words 

He  put  away 
purged 


|M 


as.  "  He  made  His  souj  an  offering  for  sin"- 
sin  by  the  sacrifice  "of^Himself," — "By  Himself  He 
our  sins,"  grow  full  of  light  ;  and  the  connexion  between  what 
He  is  who  makes  atonement,  and  the  atonement  which  He 
makes,  reveals  itself  in  a  far  other  way  than  as  men  have 
spoken  of  the  divinity  of  the  Saviour  regarding  it  either  as  a 
strength  to  endure  infinite  penal  suffering,  or  a  dignity  to  give 
adequacy  of  value  to  any  measure  of  penal  suffering  however 
small.  Not  in  these  ways,  but  in  a  far  other  way,  is  the 
person  of  Christ  brought  before  us  now  as  fixing  attention 
upon  the  divine  mind  in  humanity  as  that  which  alone  could 
suffer,  and  which  did  suffer  sufferings  of  a  nature  and  virtue 
to  purge  our  sins.  By  the  word  of  His  poiuer  ail  else  was  ac- 
complished, by  himself  He  purged  our  sins, — by  the  virtue  that 
isinjwhat^HeJsj  and  thus  is  the  atonement  not  only  what 
was  rendered  possible  by  the  incarnation,  but  itself  a  develop- 
ment of  the  incarnation. 

Luther  says,  that  all  sin  of  man,  and  the  eternal  righteous- 
ness of  God,  being  met  in  Christ  in  mutual  opposition,  the 
one  of  these  must  prevail ;  and  it  must  be  the  righteousness, 
for  it  is  divine  and  eternal.  His  conception  seems  to  have 
been : — sin  being  their  present  calling  for  judgment,  and 
righteousness  calling  for  life,  the  righteousness,  being  divine, 
must  triumph.  When,  in  explaining  this  presence  of  sin,  he 
speaks  of  the  consciousness  that  was  in  Christ  in  relation  to 
man's  sin,  as  if  it  were,  with  reference  to  all  the  sin  of  man, 
identical  in  nature  with  what  in  measure  the  perfectly  awakened 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  1 23 

sinner  feels  as  to  his  own  sin,  Luther  certainly  seems  to  lose 
the  sense  of  the  personal  separation  from  sin  of  that  Holy 
One  of  God,  in  whose  inner  being  all  the  sin  of  humanity  was 
thus  realised.     And  yet  I  venture  to  think,  that  he  only  seems 
to  do  so,  and  that  his  meaning  has  not  been  beyond  that  sense 
of  man's  sin,  and  what  is  due  to  it,  and  of  the  righteousness  of 
God's  judgment  upon  it,  of  which  I  have  spoken  above.     At 
all  events,  the  view  now  taken  of  the  way  in  which  the  Saviour 
met  and  dealt  with  the    Father's  wrath  against    sin,  may   be 
expressed  in  language  akin   to   that  of  Luther,  and  we  may 
say   that    the    divine    eternal    righteousness   in    Christ    used 
confession    of    the     sinfulness    of    sin,    as    the    weapon    of 
righteousness   in   its    conflict  with   sin  calling  for  judgment ; 
and  so,  that  righteousness  prevailed.     The  divme_nghteous- 1 
ness  in  ChnsT  appearing  on  the  part  of  man,  and  in  humanity, 
met  the  divine  righteousness  in  God  condemning  man's  sin,  ) 
by  the  true  and  righteous  confession  of  its  sinfulness,  uttered 
in   humanity,    and   righteousnesses   in    God    was     satisfied, ,: 
and  demanded  no  more  than  righteousness  _as  in  Christ  thus  ; 
presented. 

It  might  be  too  bold  to  assert  that  this  was  Luther's  meaning. 
But  at  all  events, — and  this  alone  is  important, — I  believe 
this  to  be  a  conception  according  to  the  truth  of  things  ;  and 
that  the  feelings  of  the  divine  mind  as  to  sin,  being  present  in 
humanity  and  uttering  themselves  to  God  as  a  living  voice 
from  humanity,  were  the  true  atonement  for  the  sin  of 
humanity, — the  "  equivalent  sorrow  and  repentance  "  of  which 
the  idea  was  in  the  mind  of  Edwards,  though  the  fact  of  its 
realisation  in  Christ  he  did  not  see.  But,  though  Edwards 
saw  not  that  the  equivalent  sorrow  and  repentance,  of  which 
the  thought  passed  before  his  mind,  was  actually  present  in 
these  sufferings  of  Christ  which  he  was  considering,  yet 
am  I  thankful  that  the  conception  of  such  an  equivalent  as 
the  alternative  to  infinite  punishment  has  been  recognised  by 
him.  For  he  is  the  great  teacher  of  a  demand  for  infinite 
punishment  as  implied  in  the  essential  and  absolute  justice  of 


* 


124  RETROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

God ;  and,  as  I  have  said  above,  in  his  dealing  with  absolute 
justice  and  righteousness  on  the  subject  of  the  atonement  I 
have  much  more  sympathy  than  with  the  teaching  that  makes 
rectoral  justice  or  public  justice  the  foundation  of  its  reason- 
ing. For  of  this  I  feel  quite  certain,  that  no  really  awakened 
sinner,  into  whose  spirit  the  terrors  of  the  Lord  have  entered, 
ever  thinks  of  rectoral  justice,  but  of  absolute  justice,  and 
of  absolute  justice  only.  "  Against  thee,  thee  only  have  I 
sinned,"  is  language,  in  using  which  the  soul  is  alone  with  God, 
and  thinks  not  of  any  other  bearing  of  its  sin,  but  its  bearing 
on  the  individual  in  relation  to  God. 

That  due  repentance  for  sin,  could  such  repentance  indeed 
be,  would  expiate  guilt,  there  is  a  strong  testimony  in  the 
human  heart,  and  so  the  first  attempt  at  peace  with  God,  is  an 
attempt  at  repentance, — which  attempt,  indeed,  becomes  less 
and  less  hopeful,  the  longer,  and  the  more  earnestly  and 
honestly  it  is  persevered  in, — but  this  not  because  it  comes 
to  be  felt  that  a  true  repentance  would  be  rejected  even  if 
attained,  but  because  its  attainment  is  despaired  of, — all 
attempts  at  it  being  found,  when  taken  to  the  divine  light, 
and  honestly  judged  in  the  sight  of  God,  to  be  mere  selfish 
attempts  at  something  that  promises  safety, — not  evil  indeed, 
in  so  far  as  they  are  instinctive  efforts  at  self-preservation,  but 
having  nothing  in  them  of  the  nature  of  a  true  repentance,  or 
a  godly  sorrow  for  sin  or  pure  condemnation  of  it  because  of 
its  own  evil ;  nothing,  in  short,  that  is  a  judging  sin  and  a  con- 

Jfessing  it  in  true  sympathy  with  the  divine  judgment  upon  it. 
So  that  the  words  of  Whitfield  come  to  be  deeply  sympathised 
in,  "  our  repentance  needeth  to  be  repented  of,  and  our  very 
-  tears  to  be  washed  in  the  blood  of  Christ.'' 

That  we  may  fully  realise  what  manner  of  an  equivalent  to 
the  dishonour  done  to  the  law  and  name  of  God  by  sin,  an 
adequate  repentance  and  sorrow  for  sin  must  be,  and  how  far 
more  truly  than  any  penal  infliction  such  repentance  and  con- 
fession must  satisfy  divine,  justice,  let  us  suppose  that  all  the 
sin  of  humanity  has  been  committed  by  one  human  spirit,  on 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 


125 


whom  is  accumulated  this  immeasurable  amount  of  guilt,  and 
let  us  suppose  this  spirit  loaded  with  all  this  guilt  to  pass  out 
of  sin  into  holiness,  and  to  become  filled  with  the  light  of 
God,  becoming  perfectly  righteous  with  God's  own  righteous- 
ness,— such  a  change,  were  such  a  change  possible,  would 
imply  in  the  spirit  so  changed,  a  perfect  condemnation  of  the 
past  of  its  own  existence,  and  an  absolute  and  perfect  repent- 
ance, a  confession  of  its  sin  commensurate  with  its  evil.  If 
the  sense  of  personal  identity  remained,  it  must  be  so.  Now, 
let  us  contemplate  this  repentance  with  reference  to  the  guilt 
of  such  a  spirit,  and  the  question  of  pardon  for  its  past  sin, 
and  admission  now  to  the  light  of  God's  favour.  Shall  this 
repentance  be  accepted  as  an  atonement  and  the  past  sin  being 
thus  confessed,  shall  the  divine  favour  flow  out  on  that  present 
perfect  righteousness  which  thus  condemns  the  past  ?  or,  shall 
that  repentance  be  declared  inadequate  ?  shall  the  present  per- 
fect righteousness  be  rejected  on  account  of  the  past  sin,  so 
absolutely  and  perfectly  repented  of?  and  shall  divine  justice 
still  demand  adequate  punishment  for  the  past  sin,  and  refuse 
to  the  present  righteousness  adequate  acknowledgment — the 
favour  which,  in  respect  of  its  own  nature,  belongs  to  it  ?  It 
appears  to  me  impossible  to  give  any  but  one  answer  to  these 
questions.  We  feel  that  such  a  repentance  as  we  are  supposing 
would,  in  such  a  case,  be  the  true  and  proper  satisfaction  to 
offended  justice,  and  that  there  would  be  more  atoning  worth 
in  one  tear  of  the  true  and  perfect  sorrow  which  the  memory 
of  the  past  would  awaken  in  this  now  holy  spirit,  than  in  end- 
less ages  of  penal  woe.  Now,  with  the  difference  of  personal 
identity,  the  case  I  have  supposed  is  the  actual  case  of  Christ, 
the  holy  one  of  God,  bearing  the  sins  of  all  men  on  His  spirit 
— in  Luther's  words,  "  the  one  sinner  " — and  meeting  the  cry 
(of  these  sins  for  judgment,  and  the  wrath  due  to  them,  absorb- 
I  ingand  exhausting  that  divine  wrath  in  that  adequate  confes- 
/  sion  and  perfect '  response  on  the  part  of  man,  which  was 
J  possible  only  to  the  infinite  and  eternal  righteousness  in 
humanity. 


126 


RETROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 


I  have  said  that  my  hypothetical,  and  indeed  impossible 
case,  and  that  case  which  the  history  of  our  redemption  actually 
presents,  differ  only  in  respect  of  the  personal  identity  of  the 
guilty  and  the  righteous.  And,  to  one  looking  at  the  subject 
with  a  hasty  superficial  glance,  this  difference  may  seem  to 
involve  all  the  difficulties  connected  with  imputation  of  guilt 
and  substituted  punishment.  Yet  it  can  only  so  appear  to  a 
hasty  and  superficial  glance.  For,  independent  of  the  higher 
character  of  the  moral  atonement  supposed,  as  compared  with 
the  enduring  as  a  substitute  a  penal  infliction,  this  adequate 
sorrow  for  the  sin  of  man,  and  adequate  confession  of  its  evil 
implies  no  fiction — no  imputation  to  the  sufferer  of  the  guilt  of 
the  sin  for  which  He  suffers;  but  only  that  He  has  taken  the 
nature,  and  become  the  brother  of  those  whose  sin  He  con- 
fesses before  the  Father,  and  that  He  feels  concerning  their  sins 
what,  as  the  holy  one  of  God,  and  as  perfectly  loving  God  and 
man,  He  must  feel. 

In  contemplating  our  Lord  as  yielding  up  His  soul  to  be 
filled   with    the  sense    of    the  Father's    righteous    cqndemna- 
^A    tion    of   our    sin,   and   as    responding   with    a   perfect    Amen 
to   that   condemnation,  we  are   tracing  what  was  a  necessary 
/step  in   His  path  as  dealing  with  the  Father  on  our  behalf. 
/ /  His  intercession  presupposes   this   expiatory  confession,   and 
"  cannot  be  conceived  of  apart  from  it.     Not  only  so, — but  it  is 
also  certain  that  we  cannot  rightly  conceive  of  this  confession, 
or  be  in  the  light  in  which  it  was  made,  without  seeing  that  the 
intercession  that  accompanied  it  was  necessary  to   its  com- 
pleteness, as  a  full  response  to  the  mind  of  the  Father  towards 
us  and  our  sins. 

I  have  endeavoured  to  present  Christ's  expiatory  confession 
of  our  sins  to  the  mind  of  the  reader  as  much  as  possible  by 
itself,  and  as  a  distinct  object  of  thought,  because  it  most 
directly  corresponds,  in  the  place  it  occupies,  to  the  penal 
suffering  which  has  been  assumed ;  and  I  have  desired  to  place 
these  two  ways  of  meeting  the  divine  wrath  against  sin,  as 
ascribed  to  the  Mediator,  in  contrast.     But  the   intercession 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  127 

by  which  that  confession  was  followed  up.  must  be  taken  into 

account  as  a  part  of  the  full  response  of  the  mind  of  the  Son 
to  the  mind  of  the  Father, — a  part  of  that  utterance  in 
humanity  which  propitiated  the  divine  mercy  by  the  righteous 
way  in  which  it  laid  hold  of  the  hope  for  man  which  was  in 
God.  "  He  bare  the  sins  of  many,  and  made  intercession  for 
the  transgressors."  In  the  light  of  that  true  knowledge  of  the 
heart  of  the  Father  in  which  the  Son  responded  to  the  Father's 
condemnation  of  our  sins,  the  nature  of  that  condemnation 
was  so  understood  that  His  love  was  at  liberty,  and  was 
encouraged  to  accompany  confession  by  intercession  : — not  an 
intercession  which  contemplated  effecting  a  change  in  the  heart 
of  the  Father,  but  a  confession  which  combined  with  acknow- 
ledgment of  the  righteousness  of  the  divine  wrath  against  sin, 
hope  for  man  from  that  love  in  God  which  is  deeper  than  that 
wrath, — in  truth  originating  it — determining  also  its  nature,  and 
justifying  the  confidence  that,  its  righteousness  being  responded 
to,  and  the  mind  which  it  expresses  shared  in,  that  wrath  must 
be  appeased. 

Therefore,  when  we  would  conceive  to  ourselves,  that  Amen 
to  the  mind  of  the  Father  in  its  aspect  toward  us  and  our  sins, 
which,  pervading  the  humanity  of  the  Son  of  God,  made  His 
soul  a  fit  offering  for  sin,  and  when  we  would  understand  how 
this  sacrifice  was  to  God  a  sweet-smelling  savour,  we  must  con- 
sider not  only  the  response  which  was  in  that  Amen  to  the 
divine  condemnation  of  sin,  but  also  the  response  which 
was  in  it  to  the  divine  love  in  its  yearnings  over  us  sin- 
ners. In  itself  the  intercession  of  Christ  was  the  perfected 
expression  of  that  forgiveness  which  He  cherished  toward 
those  who  were  returning  hatred  for  His  love.  But  it 
was  also  the  form  His  love  must  take  if  He  would  obtain 
redemption  for  us.  Made  under  the  pressure  of  the  per- 
fect sense  of  the  evil  of  our  state,  this  intercession  was  full 
of  the  Saviour's  peculiar  sorrow  and  suffering — a  part  of  the 
sacrifice  of  Christ :  its  power  as  an  element  of  atonement  we 
must  see,  if  we  consider  that  it  was  the  voice  of  the  divine  love    / 


I28  RETROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

coming  from  humanity,  offering  for  man  a  pure  intercession 
according  to  the  will  of  God,  offering  that  prayer  for  man  which 
was  the  utterance  alike  of  love  to  God  and  love  to  man — that 
prayer  which  accorded  with  our  need  and  the  Father's  glory 
as  seen  and  felt  in  the  light  of  the  Eternal  love  by  the  Son  of 
God  and  our  Brother. 

We  do  not  understand  the  divine  wrath  against  sin,  unless 
such  confession  of  its  evil  as  we  are  now  contemplating  is  felt 
to  be  the  true  and  right  meeting  of  that  wrath  on  the  part  of 
humanity.  We  do  not  understand  the  forgiveness  that  is  in 
God,  unless  such  intercession  as  we  are  now  contemplating  is 
felt  to  be  that  which  will  lay  hold  of  that  forgiveness,  and  draw 
it  forth.  It  was  not  in  us  so  to  confess  our  own  sins;  neither  was 
there  in  us  such  knowledge  of  the  heart  of  the  Father.  But,  if 
another  could  in  this  act  for  us, — if  there  might  be  a  mediator, 
an  intercessor, — one  at  once  sufficiently  one  with  us,  and  yet 
sufficiently  separated  from  our  sin  to  feel  in  sinless  humanity 
what  our  sinful  humanity,  could  it  in  sinlessness  look  back  on 
its  sins,  would  feel  of  Godly  condemnation  of  them  and  sorrow 
for  them,  so  confessing  them  before  God, — one  coming  suffi- 
ciently near  to  our  need  of  mercy  to  be  able  to  plead  for  mercy 
for  us  according  to  that  need,  and  at  the  same  time,  so  abiding 
in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  and  in  the  light  of  His  love  and 
secret  of  His  heart,  as,  in  interceding  for  us  to  take  full  and 
perfect  advantage  of  all  that  is  there  that  is  on  our  side,  and 
wills  our  salvation ; — if  the  Son  of  God  has,  in  the  power  of 
love,  come  into  the  capacity  of  such  mediation  in  taking  our 
nature  and  becoming  our  brother,  and  in  that  same  power  of 
love  has  been  contented  to  suffer  all  that  such  mediation, 
accomplished  in  suffering  flesh,  implied, — is  not  the  suitable- 
ness and  the  acceptableness  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  when  His 
soul  was  made  an  offering  for  sin,  what  we  can  understand  ? 
In  truth,  we  cannot  realise  the  life  of  Christ  as  He  moved  on 
this  earth  in  the  sight  of  men,  and  contemplate  His  witness- 
bearing  against  sin,  and  His  forgiveness  towards  sinners,  and 
hear  the  Father  say  of  Him,  "  This  is  my  beloved  Son  in  whom 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  129 

I  am  well  pleased,"  and  yet  doubt  that  that  mind  towards  sin 
and  sinners  which  He  thus  manifested,  and  the  Father  thus  ac- 
knowledged, would  be  altogether  acceptable,  and  a  sacrifice  to 
God  of  a  sweet-smelling  savour,  in  its  atoning  confession  of  sin 
and  intercession  for  sinners. 

I  know  that  the  adequacy  of  the  atonement  to  be  a  foundation 
for  the  remission  of  sins  cannot  be  fully  apprehended,  or  the 
righteousness  of  God  in  accepting  it  as  a  sacrifice  for  sin,  be 
fully  justified,  apart  from  its  prospective  reference  to  the  divine 
purpose  of  making  us  through  Christ  partakers  in  eternal  life. 
Yet  I  will,  even  at  this  point,  express  the  hope,  that  the  purpose 
of  God  to  extend  mercy  to  sinners  being  realised,  and  the  con- 
siderations connected  with  the  name  of  God  and  the  honour  of 
His  law,  which  had  to  be  taken  into  account,  being  present  to 
the  mind,  it  will  be  felt,  that  the  atonement,  as  now  set  forth, 
was  the  suitable  preparation  for  that  contemplated  manifestation 
of  mercy;  and  I  venture  to  express  this  hope  here,  and  thus 
early,  because,  I  am  not  unwilling  that  the  atonement  as  now 
represented,  and  while  considered  only  in  its  retrospective 
reference,  should  be  compared  with  the  conception  of  the 
atonement  as  Christ's  bearing,  as  our  substitute,  the  punishment 
of  our  sins, — the  rather,  that  that  is  a  retrospective  conception 
exclusively.  But,  1  repeat  it,  I  feel  that  it  is  placing  the  atone- 
ment, as  now  set  forth,  under  a  disadvantage  as  to  its  power  to 
commend  itself  to  the  conscience,  to  look  at  its  retrospective 
adequacy  thus  apart  from  its  prospective  reference;  to  the 
consideration  of  which  I  now  proceed. 


130 


CHAPTER  VII. 

PROSPECTIVE   ASPECT   OF   THE    ATONEMENT. 

HAVE  said  above,  that  the  atonement  is  regarded  as  that 
by  which  God  has  bridged  over  the  gulf  which  separated 
between  what  sin  had  made  us,  and  what  it  was  the  desire  of 
the  divine  love  that  we  should  become.  Therefore  its  character 
must  have  been  determined  as  much  by  the  latter  consideration 
as  by  the  former  ;  and,  on  this  ground,  I  have  complained  of 
the  extent  to  which  the  former  consideration,  rather  than  the 
latter,  has  been  taken  into  account  in  men's  recognition  of  a 
need-be  for  an  atonement. 

Yet  an  atonement  such  as  they  contemplate,  and  consisting  in.- 
substituted  punishment,  might  allowably  be  so  regarded,  being 
like  the  paying  of  a  pecuniary  debt,  at  least  as  to  the  definite 
relation  of  the  payment  to  the  debt,  the  latter  determining  the 
former  without  direct  reference  to  the  ulterior  results  involved 
in  the  debt's  being  paid.  But  such  an  atonement  as  that  which 
the  Son  of  God  has  actually  made,  cannot  be  contemplated  but 
as  in  its  very  nature  pointing  forward  to  the  divine  end  in  view. 

Accordingly,  I  have  not  been  able  now  to  enter  freely  upon 
the  subject  of  that  intercession  for  transgressors,  which  the 
prophet  mentions  as  an  element  in  the  atonement,  because  that 
intercession  cannot  be  conceived  of  as  limited  to  the  remission 
of  past  sins,  but  must  necessarily  have  had  reference  to  what 
Christ,  in  His  love  to  us,  loving  us  as  He  did  Himself,  desired 
for  us.     So  also  the  confession  of  our  sin,  in  response  to  the 


PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.     131 

divine  condemnation  of  it,  must,  when  offered  to  God  on  our 
behalf,  have  contemplated  prospectively  our  own  participation 
in  that  confession  as  an  element  in  our  actual  redemption 
from  sin.  And  even  the  witnessing  of  Christ  for  the  Father  in 
the  sight  of  men,  as  connected  with  the  righteousness  of  God 
in  the  extension  of  the  divine  mercy  to  us  rebels,  must  have  had 
its  place  in  the  atonement,  not  merely  as  a  light  condemni7ig  our 
darkness,  but  as  the  intended  light  of  life  for  us. 

All  views  of  the  work  of  Christ  of  course  imply  that  its 
ultimate  reference  was  prospective.  Whether  conceived  of  as 
securing,  in  virtue  of  a  covenanted  arrangement,  the  salvation 
of  an  election  from  among  men,  or  as  furnishing,  in  reference 
to  all  men,  a  ground  on  which  God  may  extend  mercy  to  them, 
the  work  of  Christ  has  equally  been  regarded  as  what  would 
not  have  been  but  with  a  prospective  reference.  But  on  neither 
of  these  views  is  the  justification  of  God's  acceptance  of  the 
propitiation  itself,  bound  up  with  the  question  of  the  results 
contemplated.  On  the  one  view,  the  penal  infliction  is  com- 
plete in  itself  as  a  substituted  punishment ;  the  righteousness 
wroughrmrtTs^omplete  in  itself  as  conferring  a  title  to  eternal 
blessedness,  irrespective  of  results  to  be  accomplished  in  those 
in  the  covenant  of  grace.  On  the  other  view,  a  meritorious 
ground  on  which  to  rest  justification  by  faith  is  furnished,  which 
is  complete  in  itself,  irrespective  of  any  effect  which  is  antici- 
pated from  the  faith  of  it.  But,  what  I  have  now  been  repre- 
senting as  the  true  view  of  the  atonement,  is  characterised  by 
this,  that  it  takes  the  results  contemplated  into  account  in 
considering  God's  acceptance  of  the  atonement.  Not  that  the 
moral  and  spiritual  excellence  of  the  work  of  Christ  could  have 
been  less  than  infinitely  acceptable  to  God,  viewed  simply 
in  itself;  but  that  its  acceptableness  in  connection  with  the 
remission  of  sins,  is  only  to  be  truly  and  fully  seen  in  its  relation 
to  the  result  which  it  has  contemplated,  viz.  our  participation 
in  eternal  life — or,  in  other  words,  that  the  justification  of 
God,  in  "  redeeming,"  as  He  has  done,  "  us  who  were  under 
the   law,"   is   only   clearly   apprehended   in   the   light   of  the 


132  PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

divine  purpose,  "  that  we  should  receive  the  adoption  of 
sons." 

This  direct  reference  to  the  end  contemplated,  which  dis- 
tinguishes the  view  of  the  atonement  now  taken,  as  compared 
with  those  other  systems  in  which  that  reference  is  more 
remote,  I  lay  much  weight  upon.  It  explains,  as  they  cannot 
otherwise  be  explained,  those  expressions  in  Scripture  in  which 
the  practical  end  of  the  atonement  is  connected  so  immediately 
with  the  making  of  the  atonement — as  when  it  is  said,  that 
"  Christ  gave  Himself  for  us,  that  He  might  redeem  us  from 
all  iniquity  " — that  "  we  are  redeemed  from  the  vain  conversa- 
tion received  by  tradition  from  our  Fathers,  by  the  precious 
blood  of  Christ" — that  "Christ  suffered  for  us,  the  just 
for  the  unjust,  that  He  might  bring  us  to  God."  Men 
have  been  reconciled  by  the  seeming  necessity  of  the 
case  to  the  idea  that  such  language  is  employed  because 
these  are  the  ultimate  and  remote  consequences  of  that  shed- 
ding of  Christ's  blood,  which,  it  is  held,  immediately  con- 
templated delivering  us  from  the  punishment  of  sin  by  His 
enduring  it  for  us.  But  I  regard  as  a  great  scriptural  argument 
in  favour  of  the  view  now  taken  of  the  atonement,  that  it 
represents  the  connexion  between  these  results  and  Christ's 
suffering  for  our  sins  as  not  remote,  but  immediate.  While  as 
to  the  internal  commendation  of  the  doctrine  itself,  my  con- 
viction is,  that  the  pardon  of  sin  is  seen  in  its  true 
harmony  with  the  glory  of  God,  only  when  the  work  of 
Christ,  through  which  we  have  "  the  remission  of  sins  that 
are  past,"  is  contemplated  in  its  direct  relation  to  "  the  gift  of 
eternal  life." 

The  elements  of  atonement,  which  have  now  been  considered 
in  relation  to  the  remission  of  sins,  contemplated  in  their 
relation  to  the  gift  of  eternal  life,  teach  us  how  to  conceive  of 
that  gift.  The  atonement  having  been  accomplished  by 
the  natural  working  of  the  life  of  love  in  Christ,  and  having 
been  the  result  of  His  doing  the  Father's  will,  and  declaring 
the   Father's   name  in  humanity,  we  are  prepared  as    to    the 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  133 

prospective  aspect  of  the  atonement,  to  find  that  the  perfect 
righjgnTTggppq  nf  thp  £pn  nf  Ond  in  humanity  is  itself  the  gift 
of  God  to  us  in  Christ — to  be  ours  as  Christ  is  ours. — -to  be 
partaken  in  as  He  is  partaken  in, — to  be  our  life  as  He  is  our 
lifej_.  instead  of  its  being,  as  has  been  held,  ours  by  impu- 
tation,— precious  to  us  and  our  salvation,  not  in  respect  of 
what  is  inherent  in  it,  but  in  respect  of  that  to  which  it 
confers  a  legal  title;  or,  according  to  the  modification  of 
this  conception,  (the  transference  of  righteousness  by  imputa- 
tion being  rejected,)  our  salvation  in  respect  of  effects  of 
righteousness  transferred  for  Christ's  sake  to  those  who  believe 
in  Him. 

Abstractly  considered,  and  viewed  simply  in  itself,  the 
divine  righteousness  that  is  in  Christ  must  be  recognised  as 
a  higher  gift  than  any  benefit  it  can  be  supposed  to  purchase. 
In  the  immediate  contemplation  of  the  life  of  Christ,  seen  as 
that  on  which  the  Father  is  fixing  our  attention  when  He 
says  of  Christ,  "  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well 
pleased,"  it  cannot  be  questioned,  that  the  choice  being 
offered,  or-  the  one  hand,  to  partake  in  this  divine  righteous- 
ness, or,  on  the  other,  either  to  have  it  imputed  to  us,  and  on 
account  of  such  imputation,  to  have  a  title  to  any  supposed 
rewards  of  righteousness,  or  to  have  these  rewards  without 
such  imputation  transferred  to  us,  there  could  be  no  hesita- 
tion what  choice  to  make.  Apart  altogether  from  the  diffi- 
culties involved  in  the  conception  of  the  imputation  of  right- 
eousness, or  the  transference  of  its  effects,  it  would  manifestly 
be  a  dishonour  done  to  the  divine  righteousness  to  prefer 
to  it  any  good  of  any  kind  external  to  it,  not  inherent  in 
it  but  separable  from  it,  which  might  be  conceived  of  as  its 
reward. 

I  may  be  reminded,  that  the  reward  of  righteousness,  thus 
placed  in  contrast  with  the  divine  righteousness  itself,  and 
assumed  to  be  a  lower  thing,  includes  spiritual  benefits,  includes 
sanctification  ;  and  that  this  in  effect  is  a  participation  in  the 
mind  and  life  of  Christ,  and  might  be  spoken  of  as  substantially 


134 


PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 


y 


\ 


t 


righteousness  imparted, — the  purchase  of  righteousness  im- 
puted, or  according  to  the  modification  of  the  doctrine,  a  part 
of  God's  gracious  dealing  with  us  on  the  ground  of  Christ's 
righteousness  :  and  although  this  is  a  complication  altogether 
foreign  to  the  simplicity  that  is  in  Christ,  I  thankfully  recognise 
the  degree  to  which  the  elements  of  righteousness, — all  that 
God  delights  in, — holiness,  truth,  love,  may  be  the  objects  of 
spiritual  desire,  and  be  welcomed  as  a  part  of  the  unsearchable 
riches  of  Christ,  even  in  connection  with  this  system,  and  when 
not  seen  simply  as  the  elements  of  the  eternal  life  given  to 
us  in  Christ  our  life,  and  in  respect  of  which  He  is  "  made 
of  God  unto  us  wisdom,  and  righteousness,  and  sanctification, 
and  redemption." 

But  a  righteousness  imparted  as  that  to  which  a  right  has 
been  conferred  by  a  righteousness  imputed ; — divine  favour  and 
acceptance  first  resting  upon  us,  irrespective  of  our  true  spiritual 
state,  and  then  a  spiritual  state  in  harmony  with  that  favour, 
bestowed  as  an  expression  of  that  favour ; — a  right  and 
title  to  heaven  made  sure  irrespective  of  a  meetness  for 
heaven,  and  then  that  meetness, — the  holiness  necessary 
to  the  enjoyment  of  heaven — bestowed  upon  us  as  a  part  of 
what  we  have  thus  become  entitled  to  : — this  is  a  complication 
which  the  testimony  of  God,  that  God  has  given  to  us  eternal 
life,  and  that  this  life  is  in  His  Son,  never  could  suggest.  Its 
natural  effect  is  to  turn  the  mind  away,  in  the  first  instance  at 
all  events,  from  the  direct  contemplation  of  eternal  life  as  the 
salvation  given  in  Christ.  The  elements  of  that  life  may  come 
to  be  taken  into  account  afterwards  ;  but  the  evil  effect  of  the 
first  separation  between  the  favour  of  God  and  the  actual  con- 
dition of  the  human  spirit  in  its  aspect  towards  God,  never  can 
be  altogether  remedied ; — while  this  root  error  will  always  tend 
to  develope  itself  in  reducing  the  meaning  of  the  words,  "  eter- 
nal life,"  to  the  conception  of  an  unproved  future  endless 
blessedness  that  awaits  us  as  those  who  trust  in  Christ's  merits, 
not  a  spiritual  state  into  which  we  enter  in  receiving  the  know- 
ledge of  God  in  Christ.     Thus  confusion  and  perplexity  are  in- 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  I  35 

troduced  into  the  whole  subject  of  righteousness  and  eternal 
life,  when,  this  life  being  admitted  to  be  given,  righteousness  is 
not  recognised  as  simply  an  element  in  that  gift,  or  rather  an 
aspect  of  it. 

In  tracing,  in  their  prospective  relation  to  the  gift  of  eternal 
life,  the  elements  of  at^nemenf  "now  considered  in  relation  to 
the  remission  of  sins,  we  shall  find  the  simplicity  that  is  in 
Christ  delivering  us  from  all  this  perplexity  and  confusing  com- 
plication ;  while  the  immediate  and  direct  occupation  of  our 
spirits  with  eternal  life  itself  as  salvation,  will  favour  our  intelli- 
gent apprehension  of  that  gift,  and  strengthen  us  in  the  faith 
that  God  has  given  it,  and  also  in  the  faith  of  the  remission  of 
our  sins  as  seen  in  connection  with  it, — the  glory  of  God  and 
the  gift  of  eternal  life  in  His  Son,  shedding  back  its  light  on 
the  Father' s.^acceptance  of  the  Son  when  He  made  His  soul  an 
offering  for  sin. 

I  would  recall  here  the  illustration  which  I  have  offered 
above,  of  the  conception  which  I  have  sought  to  convey  of  the 
atoning  virtue  of  Christ's  expiatory  confession  of  man's  sin,  viz. 
the  supposition  that  all  the  sin  of  man  had  been  committed  by 
one  human  spirit,  and  that  that  spirit,  preserving  its  personal 
identity,  and  retaining  the  memory  of  what  it  had  been,  should 
become  perfectly  righteous.  Had  such  a  case  been  possible, 
how  would  the  righteous  God  deal  with  such  a  spirit  ?  In  the 
language  of  Luther,  sin  and  righteousness  being  thus  met  in  one 
person,  which  would  prevail  ?  Would  the  absolute  repentance 
and  sorrow  for  the  past  sin,  which  is  necessarily  implied  in  the 
present  righteousness,  be  an  atonement  for  that  past  sin,  and 
leave  the  righteous  God  free  to  receive  that  present  righteous- 
ness with  the  favour  due  to  it,  or  would  justice  still  call  for 
vengeance?  This  would  be  a  perplexing  dilemma,  on  the 
assumption  of  the  correctness  of  the  theory  of  divine  justice 
that  represents  that  attribute  of  God  as  a  necessity  of  the  divine 
nature  which  necessitates  the  giving  to  every  spirit  that  which 
is  righteously  due  to  it, — which,  in  this  case,  would  imply 
the  necessity  both  to   punish   the  past  sin   and  reward   the 


1-6  PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

present  righteousness,  and  this  for  ever — an  impossible  com- 
bination. The  great  advocate  of  that  theory  has,  however,  as 
we  have  seen,  recognised  a  principle  which  would  extricate 
him  from  this  dilemma,  when  he  recognises  as  alternatives  an 
infinite  punishment,  or  an  adequate  repentance  ;  and  he  there- 
fore would  have  consented  to  the  answer  assumed  above  to  be 
clearly  the  right  answer  in  the  case  supposed. 

I  go  back  on  this  illustration,  because,  while  stating  it 
formerly,  I  felt  embarrassed,  so  far  as  the  supposition  was 
one  of  present  righteousness  as  well  as  of  past  sin.  In  order 
to  the  completeness  of  the  parallel  between  the  hypothetical 
case  and  the  constitution  of  things  in  Christ  which  the  Gospel 
reveals,  Christ's  confession  of  our  sin  must  be  seen  in  connec- 
tion with  our  relation  to  the  righteousness  of  Christ,  and  the 
sin  confessed,  and  the  righteousness  in  which  it  is  confessed, 
be  seen  as  if  they  were  in  the  same  person — being  both  in 
humanity ;  though  the  sin  really  exists  only  in  humanity  as"  in 
us,  and  used  in  rebellion  by  us  rebels,  and  the  righteousness 
only  in  humanity  as  in  Christ,  "  who  through  the  Eternal  Spirit 
offered  Himself  without  spot  to  God."  But  the  glory  of  God 
in  this  constitution  of  things,  is  only  seen  when  the  gift  of 
eternal  life  to  man,  in  the  Son  of  God,  is  understood — and  this 
■  gift  we  had  not  then  before  our  minds. 

I  admitted,  in  representing  Christ's  confession  of  our  sin  as 
accounted  of  to  us,  that  I  might,  on  a  superficial  view,  seem  to 
be  stating  what  was  open  to  the  same  objections  that  I  have 
recognised  as  valid  against  the  doctrine  of  penal  infliction 
endured  by  Christ  as  bearing  our  sin  by  imputation ;  and  I 
offered,  in  reply,  the  broad  distinction  between  a  state  of  mind 
in  Christ  which  implied  no  legal  fiction,  no  relation  to  our  sins 
but  what  was  necessarily  the  result  of  His  being  in  our  nature 
in  the  life  of  love, — a  mind  which,  call  it  an  atoning,  confession 
of  our  sin  or  not,  was  most  certainly  a  cofifession  of  our  sins 
which  must  have  been  present  in  His  intercession  for  us, — the 
broad  distinction  between  this  and  the  infliction  on  Christ,  by 
the  Father,  of  penal  suffering,  because,  by  imputation,  He  was 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  137 

counted  guilty  of  our  sins.  This  distinction,  if  clearly  before 
the  mind,  is  too  palpable  not  to  satisfy.  But  still,  that  identify- 
ing of  Christ  with  us,  and  that  giving  to  us,  so  to  speak,  the 
benefit  of  what  He  was  in  humanity,  which  is  implied  in 
representing  His  confession  of  our  sins  as  an  element  in  the 
atonement,  is  not,  as  I  have  now  said,  fully  justified  to  the 
mind,  apart  from  that  further  identifying  of  Christ  with  us 
through  which  His  righteousness  is  ours. 

Yet,  thus  to  speak  of  Christ's  righteousness  will  as  readily 
recall  the  doctrine  of  imputation  of  righteousness,  as  the  place 
given  to  Christ's  confession  of  our  sins  might  recall  that  of 
imputation  of  sin.  How  wide  apart  the  two  conceptions  are, 
and  what  the  true  vindication  of  the  divine  counsel  in  this 
dealing  of  the  Father  with  Christ,  as  with  the  one  man  who 
bears  the  weight  of  all  men's  sins  upon  His  spirit,  atoning  for 
them  by  confessing  them  before  the  Father  in  a  divine 
righteousness  in  humanity,  which  the  Father  receives  on  behalf 
of  all  men  as  the  righteousness  of  humanity ; — this  we  shall 
understand  in  the  light  of  the  relation  of  the  atonement  to  the 
gift  of  eternal  life. 

When  we  consider  humanity  in  the  light  shed  upon  it  by  the 
life  of  Christ  in  humanity,  we  see  together  revealed  to  us  the 
great  evil  of  its  condition  as  possessed  by  us  sinners,  and  its 
great  capacity  of  good  as  that  capacity  is  brought  out  by  the 
Son  of  God.  Now,  this  is  not  the  same  thing  with  seeing  the 
same  person  first  sinful  and  then  righteous ;  nor  is  the  problem 
which  it  presents  the  same  exactly,  as  in  that  hypothetical 
case  i — but,  still,  what  we  are  thus  contemplating  involves  a 
closely  analogous  question  for  the  determination  of  the 
righteous  Lord  who  loveth  righteousness.  As  the  dishonour 
done  to  God  in  humanity  cries  out  against  it,  so  does  the 
honour  done  to  God  plead  in  its  favour,— not  in  the  way, 
certainly,  of  an  off-set  in  respect  of  which  the  honour  may 
cover  over,  gild  over,  the  dishonour,  and  so  humanity  be 
regarded  with  acceptance  as  one  whole ;  not  thus, — although 
the  honour  be  divine  as  well  as  human,  while  the  dishonour  is 


/* 


*> 


Yu 


138  PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

simply  human, — but  as  the  revelation  of  an  inestimable 
preciousness  that  was  hidden  in  humanity,  hidden  from  the 
inheritors  of  humanity  themselves,  but  not  hid  from  God,  and 
now  brought  forth  into  manifestation  by  the  Son  of  God.  For 
the  revealer  of  the  Father  is  also  the  revealer  of  man,  who  was 
made  in  God's  image. 

This  high  capacity  of  good  pertaining  to  humanity  is  not 
indeed  to  be  contemplated  as  belonging  to  us  apart  from  our 
relation  to  the  Son  of  God.  For  although  in  one  sense  it  is 
quite  correct  to  speak  of  the  righteousness  of  Christ  as  the 
revelation  of  the  capacity  of  righteousness  that  was  in  humanity, 
a  capacity  that  remained  to  man  although  hidden  under  sin ; — 
in  truth,  humanity  had  this  capacity  only  relatively,  that  is,  as 
dwelt  in  by  the  Son  of  God ;  and  therefore,  there  was  in  the 
righteousness  of  Christ  in  humanity  no  promise  for  humanity 
apart  from  the  Son  of  God's  having  power  over  all  flesh  to  im- 
part eternal  life.  We  cannot,  therefore,  see  hope  for  man  in 
the  righteousness  of  Christ,  apart  from  the  contemplation  of 
this  power  as  possessed  by  Christ.  Therefore,  there  must  be  a 
relation  between  the  Son  of  God  and  the  sons  of  men,  not 
according  to  the  flesh  only,  but  also  according  to  the  spirit, — 
the  second  Adam  must  be  a  quickening  spirit,  and  the  head  of 
every  man  be  Christ.  But  if  we  see  this  double  relation  as 
subsisting  between  Christ  and  men,  if  we  see  Him  as  the  Lord 
of  their  spirits,  as  well  as  a  partaker  in  their  flesh,  that  air  of 
legal  fiction,  which,  in  contemplating  the  atonement,  attaches 
to  our  identification  with  Christ  and  Christ's  identification  with 
us,  so  long  as  this  is  contemplated  as  matter  of  external 
arrangement,  will  pass  away,  and  the  depth  and  reality  of  the 
bonds  which  connect  the  Saviour  and  the  saved  will  bear  the 
weight  of  this  identification,  and  fully  justify  to  the  enlightened 
conscience  that  constitution  of  things  in  which  Christ's  con- 
fession of  our  sins  expiates  them,  and  Christ's  righteousness  in 
humanity  clothes  us  with  its  own  interest  in  the  sight  of  God  : 
for  thus,  that  divine  righteousness  of  the  Son  of  God  is  seen  as 
necessarily  shedding  to  the  mind  of  the  Father  its  own  glory 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  139 

and  its  own  preciousness  over  all  humanity, — but  in  a  way  as 
remote  from  the  imputation  of  righteousness  as  Christ's  bearing 
our  sins,  as  this  has  now  been  illustrated,  and  confessing  them, 
is  from  imputation  to  him  of  our  sins. 

And  this,  indeed,  is  infinitely  far;  and  yet  some  vague 
feeling  corresponding  to  this  truth  of  things, — some  vague 
feeling  of  the  standing  which  the  human  spirit  needs  to  find  in 
another  than  itself — not  having  it  in  itself — and  which  God  has 
given  to  men  in  Christ,  has  been  present,  working  in  men's 
minds,  and  commending  to  them  the  system  of  imputation  with 
all  its  moral  repulsiveness  and  intellectual  contradiction ; — 
insomuch  that  one  truly  knowing  his  own  dependence  on  Christ, 
feels  more  sympathy  and  unity  with  those  who  in  the  spirit 
cherish  that  dependence, — though  conceiving  of  it  intellectually 
in  the  erroneous  form  which  it  has  in  the  system  of  imputation, 
— than  with  those  whose  sense  of  the  moral  and  intellectual 
objectionableness  of  that  system,  is  connected  with  the  taking 
of  a  standing  of  independent  self-righteousness  before  God. 
For,  as  to  all  whose  trust  is  truly  in  Christ,  and  in  the  Father's 
delight  in  Him,  spiritually  apprehended,  I  am  assured  that,  how- 
ever I  may  seem  to  them — as  to  many  such  I  shall  seem 
touching  the  apple  of  their  eye,  I  am  not  touching  that  which 
is  their  life. 

I  proceed  to  consider,  in  relation  to  the  gift  of  eternal  life, 
the  two  aspects  in  which  we  are  contemplating  the  life  of  love 
in  the  Son  of  God,  in  His  making  His  soul  an  offering  for  sin. 

I.  The  atonement  by  which  Phinehas  stayed  the  plague, 
prepared  us  for  recognising  the  vindication  of  the  divine 
righteousness  in  the  Son's  honouring  the  Father  in  the  sight  of 
man  as  a  necessary  step  in  the  manifestation  of  mercy,  and  we 
see  a  true  element  of  propitiation  for  the  sin  of  man  in  Christ's 
glorifying  God  in  humanity.  Yet,  in  studying  the  manner  of 
Christ's  witnessing  for  the  Father,  we  have  the  conviction 
continually  impressed  upon  us,  that  this  revealing  of  the  Father 
by  the  presentation  to  us  of  the  life  of  sonship  has  as  its  object 
our  participation  in  that  life  of  sonship,  and  so  our  participation 


140  PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

in  that  knowledge  and  enjoyment  of  the  Father,  and  that 
inheriting  of  the  father  as  the  Father,  which  fellowship  in  the 
life  of  sonship  can  alone  bring. 

Let  us  mark  how  immediate  was  the  relation  of  this  hope  for 
man  to  what  Christ  was  suffering  in  making  His  soul  an  offering 
for  sin.  He  knew  that  that  life  of  love  which  was  then  in  Him 
a  light  condemning  the  darkness  from  which  he  was  suffering 
was  yet  to  overcome  that  darkness  and  take  its  place.  His 
own  consciousness  in  humanity  witnessed  within  Him  that 
humanity  was  capable  of  being  filled  with  the  life  of  love.  The 
more  perfectly  He  realized  that  these  were  his  brethren  whose 
hatred  was  coming  forth  against  Him,  the  more  did  He  realize 
also  that  hatred  was  not  of  the  essence  of  their  being, — that 
there  was  hope  in  giving  Himself  for  them  to  redeem  them 
from  iniquity, — that  there  was  hope  in  suffering  for  them  the 
just  for  the  unjust — hope  that  He  would  bring  them  to  God. 
How  manifestly  has  the  joy  of  this  hope  underlain  all  His 
sorrow  !  It  was,  indeed,  the  joy  that  was  set  before  Him,  for 
which  He  endured  the  cross,  despising  the  shame.  He  bore 
the  contradiction  of  sinners  against  Himself,  not  only  in  the 
meekness  and  patience  of  love,  and  the  unselfishness  of  love, 
which  was  more  deeply  grieved  that  they  should  offend,  than 
that  itself  was  offended  against;  but  also,  in  the  prophetic 
faith  of  love  that  looked  forward  to  yet  becoming  itself  the  life 
of  those  who  now  rejected  it.  There  is  hope  for  the  future, 
as  well  as  deep  sadness  because  of  the  present,  in  the  words, 
"  O  righteous  Father,  the  world  hath  not  known  thee,  but  I 
have  known  thee."  If  the  world  could  continue  to  be  the 
world  after  coming  to  know  the  Father,  there  would  have  been 
no  hope  for  the  world.  But,  in  the  consciousness  of  being  in  a 
light  in  which  the  world  was  not  was  their  hope  to  His  heart 
for  the  world, — therefore  did  He  pray  on  the  cross,  and  when 
the  enmity  had  manifested  itself  to  the  utmost,  "  Father,  forgive 
them  ;  for  they  know  not  what  they  do." 

I  know  we  more  frequently  refer  to  these  words,  as  the 
precious  record  of  the  perfection  of  that  forgiveness  of  His 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  141 

enemies,  which  was  in  Him  who  by  His  life  and  death,  as  by 
His  precepts,  has  taught  us  to  forgive  our  enemies,  to  love 
them,  to  pray  for  them, — and  in  this  view  the  record  is  precious. 
But,  there  is  important  light  in  the  footing  on  which  He  puts 
His  prayer  for  forgiveness  to  them,  viz.  "  for  they  know  not  what 
they  do."  Had  the  full  power  of  light  been  expended  on  them, 
and  without  result,  there  would  have  been  no  room  to  pray 
for  them,  because  there  would  have  been  no  possibility  of 
answering  the  prayer.  But,  let  us  thankfully  hear  Him  who 
knew  what  is  in  man,  thus  praying ;  and  let  us  mark  how  to  the 
close  He  was  sustained  in  making  His  soul  an  offering  for  sin, 
by  the  consciousness  in  His  own  humanity  of  a  knowledge  of 
the  Father  which,  being  partaken  in,  had  power  to  redeem 
humanity.  "  I  have  declared  thy  name,  and  will  declare  it, 
that  the  love  wherewith  thou  hast  loved  me,  may  be  in  them, 
and  I  in  them."  I  do  not  forget  the  words,  "  now  they  have 
no  cloak  for  their  sin," — "  now  they  have  seen  and  hated  both 
me  and  my  Father."  But,  however  great  the  measure  of  light 
thus  recognised  as  received  and  abused,  and  bringing  condem- 
nation, the  possibility  of  a  light  beyond  it  is  clearly  implied  in 
the  words  which  I  have  been  quoting.  These  evil  men  were 
of  the  world,  of  which  He  says  to  the  Father,  that  it  hath  not 
known  Him.  They  were  included  in  the  prayer,  "  Father, 
forgive  them ;  for  they  know  not  what  they  do."  And  so  the 
apostle  John  teaches,  "  He  that  saith  he  is  in  the  light,  and 
hateth  his  brother,  is  in  darkness,  even  until  now.  He  that 
hateth  his  brother  is  in  darkness,  and  walketh  in  darkness,  and 
knoweth  not  whither  he  goeth,  because  that  darkness  hath  blinded 
his  eyes."  This  our  Lord  knew,  and  He  knew  also,  that  He 
had  come  a  light  into  the  world,  that  he  that  should  believe  in 
Him  should  not  abide  in  darkness,  but  should  have  the  light 
of  eternal  life.  The  sad  sorrowful  work  of  being  a  light  con- 
demning the  darkness  was  therefore  cheered  by  the  conscious- 
ness of  not  only  being  light  in  Himself,  but  "  the  light  of  the 
world,"  that  is,  a  light  for  men,  a  light  which  His  own  human 
consciousness  ever  testified  to  be  a  light  for  men. 


T42  PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

Therefore  was  the  consciousness  of  having  glorified  the 
Father  on  the  earth  the  foundation  of  the  prayer  that  the 
Father  would  glorify  Him  in  the  exercise  of  the  power  over  all 
flesh  to  give  eternal  life  to  as  many  as  the  Father  should  give 
to  Him, — to  all  who,  having  heard  and  been  taught  of  the 
Father,  should  come  to  the  Son  ;  and  we  know  that  while 
walking  in  His  sorrowful  path,  with  the  hope  of  being  the  chan- 
nel of  eternal  life  to  those  for  whose  sins  He  was  making 
atonement,  the  comfort  was  granted  to  Him  of  being  able  to 
say  of  some,  that  the  light  that  was  in  Him  had  in  some 
measure  been  received  by  them  ;  that  in  a  true  sense,  however 
small  the  measure,  they  "  were  not  of  the  world,  even  as  He 
was  not  of  the  world;"  that  His  revealing  of  the  Father  by 
being  in  their  sight  the  Son  honouring  the  Father,  had  not  been 
in  vain  ;  that  at  least  it  had  quickened  so  much  life  in  them  as 
in  Philip  could  say,  "  Shew  us  the  Father,  and  it  sufficeth 
us  ; "  that  in  truth,  though  they  so  little  understood  what  His 
living  ministry  of  love  had  accomplished  in  their  spirits  as  not 
to  understand  Him  when  He  bare  testimony  to  it,  still 
a  great  result  had  been  accomplished,  for  that  He  could 
say,  "  Whither  I  go  ye  know,  and  the  way  ye  know," 
though  they  themselves  were  so  little  aware  of  this  as  to 
rejoin,  "  Lord,  we  know  not  whither  thou  goest ;  and  how  can 
we  know  the  way  ?  " 

Thus,  a  measure  of  present  comfort  of  the  nature  of  the  joy 
set  before  Him  was  granted  to  our  Lord  even  in  the  time  of 
His  making  His  soul  an  offering  for  sin.  Thus  are  we  to  con- 
ceive of  Him  as  contented  to  be  through  suffering  made  per- 
fect as  the  Captain  of  our  salvation, —  welcoming  all  by  which 
He  was  receiving  fitness  to  be  to  us  the  channel  of  eternal 
life.  "  For  their  sakes  I  sanctify  myself  that  they  also  might 
be  sanctified  through  the  truth."  For,  He  welcomed  that 
ordering  of  His  path  by  the  Father,  which  had  reference  to  the 
development  of  the  life  of  love  that  was  in  Him,  according  to 
all  the  need  of  man ;  not  withholding  His  face  from  shame 
and  spitting,  when  opening  His  ear  as  the  learner,  that  in 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  143 

Him  we  might  have  all  the  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge  ; 
though  a  Son,  yet  learning  obedience  by  the  things  which  He 
suffered,  that  being  made  perfect,  He  might  become  the  author 
of  eternal  salvation  unto  all  that  obey  Him ;  submitting  to  be 
tempted  in  all  points  as  we  are  tempted,  that,  sinlessly  passing 
through  such  trial,  He  might  be  able,  as  our  high  priest,  to 
succour  us  when  we  are  tempted.  In  all  "ways  of  manifestation 
of  the  life  of  Sonship,  and  at  all  cost  to  Himself,  He  de- 
clared the  Father's  name  in  life  and  in  death,  that  the  love 
wherewith  the  Father  had  loved  Him  might  be  in  us  and  He 
in  us. 

It  is  certain  that  the  atonement  has  its  right  interest  to  us, 
and  quickens  in  us  the  hope  which  it  has  been  intended  to 
quicken,  only  when  that  interest  and  that  hope  are  one  as  to 
nature  and  foundation  with  what  were  present  in  the  mind  of 
Christ  in  making  the  atonement.  We  must  be  in  the  light  of 
His  honouring  of  His  Father's  name  in  all  that  He  pre- 
sented in  humanity  to  the  faith  and  spiritual  vision  of  men. 
And  this  honouring  was  not  only  universal  as  to  the  outward 
form  of  his  life,  but  went  to  the  depth  of  the  inner  man  of  the 
heart,  to  the  full  extent  of  making  His  life  in  humanity  a 
"  serving  of  the  living  God."  "  I  do  nothing  of  myself :  as  I 
hear,  I  judge," — "  My  works  are  not  mine,  but  His  that  sent 
me," — "  The  Father  who  dwelleth  in  me,  He  doeth  the 
works," — "  My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work," — "  The 
Son  doeth  nothing  of  Himself;  but  whatsoever  the  Father 
doeth,  the  same  doeth  the  Son  likewise," — "  Why  callest  thou 
me  good  ?  there  is  none  good  but  one,  that  is  God."  So  deep 
was  the  honouring  of  the  Father  in  humanity  by  the  Son,  when 
"  through  the  Eternal  Spirit  He  offered  Himself  without  spot 
to  God." 

Nor  is  it  by  what  He  presented  in  Himself  as  under  His 
Father's  guidance  alone,  that  the  Son  of  God  reveals  to  us  the 
Father.  He  vindicates  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  condemns 
our  sin  as  rebellious  children,  by  all  that  we  see  the  Father  to 
be  to  Him  through  His  following  God  as  a  dear  child  walking 


^ 


1/ 


144  PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

in  love.  I  have,  in  this  view,  noticed  above  the  place  which 
our  Lord's  "peace"  and  "joy,"  of  which  He  speaks  to  the 
disciples  as  known  to  them,  had  in  His  witnessing  for  the 
Father  :  for,  indeed,  the  Son  would  have  been  an  imperfect 
witness  for  the  Father  if  He  was  not,  by  those  who  saw  Him 
truly,  seen  to  have  peace  and  joy  in  the  Father, — a  peace  and 
a  joy  to  which  often  an  unclouded  expression  would  be  per- 
mitted,— but  which  would  abide  in  His  spirit,  however  His 
sorrows  from  all  else  might  abound  ;  and  in  respect  of  which  all 
such  sorrows,  though  they  might  be  what  would  justify  the 
appeal,  "  Look,  and  see  if  there  be  any  sorrow  like  unto  my 
sorrow,"  would  be  but  the  trial  of  faith,  and  the  more  abundant 
manifestation  of  what  the  Father  was  to  the  Son.  Now,  as  to 
all  by  which  the  Son  thus  honoured  the  Father,  we  are  to  see 
that  it  all  entered  into  His  hope  for  us  in  His  making  His  soul 
an  offering  for  sin,  because  it  was  in  humanity  that  He  was 
having  all  this  experience. 

I  have  said  above  that  we  are  to  understand  that  He  who  is 
the  revealer  of  God  to  man  is  also  the  revealer  of  man  to 
himself.  Apart  from  Christ  we  know  not  our  God,  and 
apart  from  Christ  we  know  not  ourselves  :  as,  indeed,  it  is 
also  true,  that  we  are  as  slow  to  apprehend  and  to  welcome 
the  one  revelation  as  the  other, — as  slow  to  see  man  in  Christ, 
as  to  see  God  in  Christ.  We  have  seen  how  much  loss  even 
earnest  and  deep  thinking  and  holy  men  have  suffered  through 
not  looking  upon  the  life  of  love  in  Christ  as  the  revelation  of 
the  Father ; — how  it  has  thus  come  to  pass  that,  looking  upon 
Christ's  love  to  men  merely  as  the  fulfilment  for  man  of  the 
law  under  which  man  was,  they  have  dwelt  on  that  fulfilment, 
and  enlarged  on  the  circumstances  which  prove  how  perfect  it 
was,  and  yet  have  not  read  the  heart  of  God — the  love  of  God 
to  all  men,  in  that  record  of  the  life  of  Christ  which  they  were 
studying.  And  so,  also,  these  same  men,  through  the 
assumption  that  in  the  life  of  Christ  they  were  contemplating 
the  working  out  of  a  legal  righteousness  for  man,  to  be  his  by 
imputation,  as    they  were   turned   away  from   seeing   God  in 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  145 

Christ,  so    have  also  been    turned  away  from  seeing  man  in 

Christ,   seeing  themselves  in  Christ,  seeing  the  capacities  of 

their  own  being  in  Christ.      Not  for   His   own   sake  but  for 

our  sakes  did  the  Son  of  God  reveal  the  hidden  capacity  of 

good  that  is  in  man  by  putting  forth  in  humanity  the  power    /      fly 

of  the  law  of  the  Spirit  of  His  own  life — the  life  of  sonship.    ; 

"  For    what    the    law    could    not    do,  in    that    it    was   weak 

through  the  flesh,  God  sending  His  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of 

sinful  flesh,  and  as  a  sacrifice  for  sin,  condemned  sin  in  the 

flesh,  that  the  righteousness  of  the  law  might  be  fulfilled  in 

us   who   walk  not  after  the  flesh,  but  after  the  spirit."     We, 

then,  for  whose  sake  this  has  been,  must  learn  to  see  in  this 

revelation  of  what  humanity  is  when  pervaded  with  the  life  of 

sonship  that  redemption  of  which  we  w^re;  capable,  and  which 

we  have  in  Christ,  and  set  ourselves  to  the  study  of  the  twofold 

discovery  of  God  and  of  man  in  Christ,  with  the  conviction 

that   in  it  are   hid   for  us   all   the  treasures  of  wisdom  and 

knowledge. 

I  have  said  above  that  the  Son  alone  could  reveal  the 
Father — for,  indeed,  manifested  sonship  can  alone  reveal 
fatherliness,  being  that  in  which  the  -desire  of  that  fatherliness 
is  fulfilled, — which  therefore  reveals  that  desire  by  fulfilling  it. 
Thus  are  we  to  understand  the  voice  of  the  Father  saying  of 
the  Son,  "  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased  " 
— which  voice,  when  heard  in  our  hearts,  is  that  drawing  of  the 
Father  through  which  we  come  to  the  Son.  And  in  this  light 
are  we  to  receive  the  words,  "hear  ye  Him,"  which  declare  the 
purpose  of  that  drawing.  For  we  are  called  to  hear  the_Son 
that  we  may  know  the  Father  through  knowing  the  Son  in 
whom  He  is  well  pleased,  and  so  mayHEnow  what  is  the  Father's 
desire  as  to  ourselves,  and  what  He  has  given  to  us  in  the  Son, 
that  that  desire  of  His  heart  for  us  may  be  fulfilled  in  us.  Let 
the  reader  examine  his  own  heart  as  to  the  measure  in  which 
this  is  the  ground  of  the  interest  with  which  he  regards  the 
divine  righteousness  in  humanity,  and  the  Father's  testimony  to 
the  Son.     For,  assuredly,  it  ought  to  be  so ;  and  we  ought  to 


146  PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

be  jealous  of  every  thought  and  view  that  divides  attention  with 
the  gift  of  eternal  life — jealous  of  our  going  out  of  the  circle  of 
the  life  that  is  in  Christ  in  search  of  the  unsearchable  riches 
which  we  have  in  Christ;  above  all,  jealous  of  occupying  our 
imagination  with  an  unknown  future  blessedness  to  be  bestowed 
x   on  us  for  Christ's  sake,  instead  of  keeping  to  what  is  included 
.  in  Christ,  in  the  mind  revealed  in  Christ,  and  so  is  addressed 
j  to  the  will  in  man  as  what  we  are  to  partake  in  in  yielding  our 
!  will  to  be  guided  by  the  law  of  the  Spirit  of  the  life  that  is  in 
»  Christ — the  life  of  sonship :  which  is  in  itself  riches,  unsearch- 
able infinite  riches,  because  it,  and  it  alone,  enjoys  the  Father 
as  the  Father,  making  us  heirs  of  God, — heirs  of  God,  and  joint 
heirs  with  Jesus  Christ. 

One  has  spoken  of  difficulty  in  joining,  in  anticipation, 
"  himself  and  glory  in  one  thought."  The  greater  difficulty  is 
to  join  ourselves  and  eternal  life  in  one  thought  now,  although 
God  has  already  in  C^hrjsl  SO  ^nnnerted  jisJlLlhe  very  truth  of 
things.  But,  as  I  have  said,  we  are  alike  slow  of  heart  to 
receive  Christ's  revelation  of  ourselves,  and  to  receive  His 
revelation  of  God, — to  believe  that  God  has  given  to  us  eternal 
life  in  His  Son,  and  to  believe  that  God  is  love. 
»  I  know,  indeed,  that  the  difficulty  felt  in  believing  that  our 
'  humanity  and  its  capacity  of  good  in  respect  of  the  eternal  life 
which  we  have  in  Christ,  is  what  the  life  of  Christ  reveals  it  to 
be,  is  what  we  are  tempted  to  excuse  on  the  ground  of  the  felt 
sinfulness  of  our  own  nature.  Yet,  is  not  the  deepest  know- 
ledge of  that  sinfulness  expressed  in  the  verses  just  before  those 
in  which  the  Apostle  recognises  the  power  of  the  law  of  the 
Spirit  of  the  life  that  is  in  Christ  to  make  us  free  from  the  law 
of  sin  and  death  ?  Has,  in  this  matter,  experimental  knowledge 
ever  gone  further  than  what  the  words  express, — "  I  find  a  law 
in  my  members  warring  against  the  law  of  my  mind,  and 
bringing  me  into  captivity  to  the  law  of  sin  that  is  in  my 
members.  O  wretched  man  that  I  am,  who  shall  deliver  me 
from  the  body  of  this  death  ? "  This  was  the  question,  and 
this  the  state  of  mind  in  relation  to  which  the  knowledge  of  the 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  147 

power  of  the  life  of  sonship  in  humanity  moved  the  Apostle  to 
thank  God  through  Jesus  Christ.  Wejcnow  Tint  the,  truth  of 
humanity, — we  know  only  its  perversion  while  we  are  living  the 
life  o£self  and  enmity  and  are  as  gods  to  ourselves.  What  it  is 
to  be  a  man,  what  we  possess  in  humanity,  we  never  know  until 
we.  see  humanity  in  Him  who  through  the  eternal  Spirit  offered 
Himself  without  spot  to  God. 

Let  us  understand  it.  The  difficulty  of  believing  the 
revelation  of  man  that  is  in  Christ,  and  the  difficulty  of 
believing  the  revelation  of  God  that  is  in  Christ,  is  one  difficulty. 
To  believe  that  God  is  love,  as  this  is  revealed  by  His 
manifestation  of  love  to  us,  is  to  believe  that  love,  as  ascribed 
to  God  in  relation  to  man,  means  that  desire  for  man  which  is 
fulfilled  in  the  humanity  of  Christ,  and  can  in  that  alone  be 
satisfied.  Therefore,  those  general  conceptions  of  the  divine 
mercy  and  benevolence  which  are  formed  when  God  is  con- 
templated only  as  so  feeling  for  our  misery  and  desiring  our 
happiness  as  that  He  gave  Christ  to  die  for  us  that  we  might  be 
saved  from  misery  and  partake  in  everlasting  bliss,  although 
they  are  true  conceptions  so  far  as  they  go,  come  altogether  short 
of  the  love  of  God  to  us  in  Christ  Jesus.  For  the  element  of 
fatherliness  is  wanting — what  it  craves  for — what  alone  can 
satisfy  it.  But  on  fatherliness,  as  ascribed  to  God,  is  the 
attention  kept  continually  fixed  in  the  Gospel.  That  God  has 
a  Father's  heart,  may  not,  indeed,  be  admitted  as  a  proof  that 
the  capacity  of  sonship  has  remained  to  us.  But  at  least  the 
manifestation  of  that  fatherliness  by  the  Son  as  the  light  of  life 
to  us  does  prove  it. 

Let  us  not  think  of  Christ,  therefore,  simply  as  revealing  how 
kind  and  compassionate  God  is,  and  how  forgiving  to  our  sins, 
as  those  who  have  broken  His  righteous  law.  Let  us  think  of 
\Christ  as  the  Son  who  reveals  the  Father,  that  we  may  know 
\he  Father's  heart  against  which  we  have  sinned,  that  we  may 
see  how  sin,  in  making  us  godless,  has  made  us  as  orphans,  and 
understand  that  the  grace  of  God,  which  is  at  once  the  remis- 
sion of  past  sin,  and  the  gift  of  eternal  life,   restores  to  our 


1 48  PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

orphan  spirits  their  Father  and  to  the  Father  of  spirits  His  lost 
children. 

I  have  dwelt  above  on  the  difference  between  a  filial  standing 
and  a  legal  standing.  I  have  spoken  also  of  what"  Christ's 
being  our  example  in  the  life  of  faith  implies  as  to  the  footing 
on  which  we  are  to  draw  near  to  God,  and  the  nature  of  the 
confidence  which  Christ  desires  to  quicken  in  us.  Yet  I  feel  it 
necessary  thus  to  insist  upon  the  faith  of  the  sonship  in 
humanity,  which  is  revealed  in  Christ,  as  the  necessary  supple- 
ment and  complement  of  the  faith  of  the  fatherliness,  revealed 
to  be  in  God  :  and  I  must  often  recur  to  this  because,  in  truth, 
my  hope  of  helping  any  out  of  the  perplexities  and  confusions 
which  I  feel  to  prevail  on  the  subjects  of  justification  and 
sanctification,  is  simply  the  hope  of  helping  them  to  see  the 
contradiction  between  coming  to  God  in  the  spirit  of  sonship, 
with  the  confidence  which  the  faith  of  the  Father's  heart 
sustains,  and  coming  to  God  with  a  legal  confidence  as  righteous 
in  His  sight,  because  clothed  with  a  legal  righteousness,  or  at 
least  accepted  on  the  ground  of  such  a  righteousness. 

In  speaking  of  that  which  he  had  come  to  experience  through 
knowledge  of  the  eternal  life  which  was  with  the  Father  and 
was  manifested  in  the  Son — that  experience  into  the  fellowship 
of  which  he  desired  to  bring  others,  the  Apostle  says,  "  And 
truly  our  fellowship  is  with  the  Father  and  with  His  Son  Jesus 
Christ."  "  Father "  and  "  Son  "  here  do  more  than  indicate 
persons  :  they  indicate  that  in  these  persons  with  which  the 
fellowship  is  experienced.  Eternal  life  is  to  the  Apostle  a 
light  in  which  the  mind  of  fatherliness  in  the  Father,  and  the 
mind  of  sonship  in  the  Son,  are  apprehended  and  rejoiced  in. 
This  teaching  as  to  the  nature  of  salvation  is  the  same  which 
we  receive  from  the  Lord  Himself  when  He  says,  "  This  is 
eternal  life,  to  know  Thee  the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ 
whom  Thou  hast  sent ;  "  as  also  when  He  says,  "  If  a  man  love 
me,  he  will  keep  my  words  :  and  my  Father  will  love  him,  and 
we  will  come  unto  him,  and  make  our  abode  with  him." 

Let  the  reader  think  of  this,  and  take  his  own  experience  to 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  149 

this  light.  To  me  it  appears  that  the  temptation  to  stop  short 
of  the  light  that  shines  to  us  in  the  communion  of  the  Son  with 
the  Father  in  humanity  is  strong,  and  greatly  prevails.  But 
this  light  is  the  very  light  of  life  to  us  ;  for  this  communion  is 
the  gift  of  the  Father  to  us  in  the  Son.  In  the  experience  of 
this  communion  in  our  nature  and  as  our  brother,  did  our  Lord 
look  forward  to  our  partaking  in  it  as  what  would  be  our  salva- 
tion. The  seventeenth  chapter  of  the  Gospel  of  S.  John  most 
fully  declares  this.  Indeed  the  evidence  abounds  that  it  was 
this  which  was  ever  in  the  contemplation  of  Christ  in  glorifying 
the  Father  on  the  earth  ;  while  of  anything  like  the  conscious- 
ness of  being  working  out  a  righteousness  to  be  imputed  to 
men  to  give  them  a  legal  ground  of  confidence  towards  God 
there  is  no  trace. 

I  have  already  referred  to  President  Edwards'  legal  repre- 
sentation of  the  righteousness  of  Christ,  assumed  to  be  imputed 
in  faith,  as  perfected  in  His  obedience  unto  death,  and  that  of 
which  God  manifested  His  acceptance  when  He  raised  Christ 
from  the  dead.  But  the  testimony  to  the  Saviour  was  deeper 
and  higher.  Christ  was  declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God  by  the 
resurrection  from  the  dead.  The  righteousness  then  acknow- 
ledged was  none  other  than  what  the  Father  had  previously 
borne  testimony  to  when  He  said,  "  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in 
whom  I  am  well  pleased ; " — on  the  sonship,  the  life  of  sonship 
that  was  in  Christ,  was  attention  thus  fixed,  and  not  on  the 
legal  perfection  of  the  righteousness  which  it  fulfilled.  How 
then  can  we  think  of  the  Father's  testimony  to  the  Son  as  other 
than  a  commending  of  sonship  to  us,  or  think  of  the  Father's 
delight  in  the  Son  otherwise  than  as  what  justifies  His  imparting 
the  life  of  sonship  to  us  ? 

Let  us  in  this  light  regard  Christ's  being  delivered  for  our 
offences,  and  raised  again  for  our  justification.  The  offences 
for  which  He  made  expiation  were  ours, — that  expiation  being 
the  due  atonement  for  the  sin  of  man — accepted  on  behalf  of 
all  men.  His  righteousness,  declared  in  His  resurrection  from 
the  dead,  is  ours — the  proper  righteousness  for  man,  and  in 


1.50 


PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 


sin 


Him  given  to  all  men :  and  that  righteousness  is  not  the  past  fact 
of  legal  obligation  discharged,  but  the  mind  of  sonship  towards  the 
Father ;  for  in  the  beloved  Son  is  the  Father  seen  to  be  well 
pleased,  and  in  our  being  through  Him  to  the  Father  dear 
children  will  it  come  to  pass  that  the  Father  will  be  well  pleased 
in  us. 

II.  All  that  we  thus  learn  as  to  the  prospective  reference  of 
the  atonement  in  considering  Christ's  own  manifested  life  in 
humanity  as  His  witnessing  for  the  Father  to  men.  is  confirmed, 
and  further  light  shed  upon  it,  when  we  consider  with  the  same 
prospective  reference  the  atonement  as  the  Son's  dealing  with 
the  Father  on  our  behalf. 

We  cannot  conceive  of  our  Lord's  dealing  with  the  Father 
on  our  behalf  without  passing  on  to  its  prospective  reference. 

e  could  not  formerly  speak  freely  of  that"  intercession  for 
sinners  which  the  Prophet  has  conjoined  with  his  bearing  of 
their  sins,  because  that  intercession  could  not  be  conceived  of 
as  stopping  short  of  the  prayer  for  our  participation  in  eternal 
life,  to  which  the^ejcpiatory  confession. oI_pjjr_sins,  and  prayer 
for  the  pardon  of  our  sins  necessarily  led  forward,  and  in  con- 
nection with  which  alone  they  could  have  existed.  We  now 
approach  the  subject  of  this  dealing  of  Christ  with  the  Father 
in  the  light  of  Christ's  own  perfection  in  humanity,  and  connect 
His  laying  hold  of  the  hope  for  man  which  was  in  God  with  the 
Father's  testimony  that  He  was  well  pleased  in  the  Son.  What 
we  have  thought  of  Christ  as  necessarily  desiring  for  us,  was 
the  fellowship  of  what  He  Himself  was  in  humanity.  .This, 
therefore,  was  that  wnich  He  would  ask  for  us;  and  we  can 
now  understand  that  He  would  do  so  with  a  confidence  con- 
nected with  His  own  consciousness  that  in  hwnanity  He  abode 
in  His  Father's  love  and  in  the  light  of  His  countenance. 
Thus  would  His  own  righteousness  be  presented  along  with_the 
confession  of  our  sins  when  He  asked  for  us  remission  of  sins 
and  eternal  life. 

And  this  is  the  right  conception  of  Christ  pleading  His  own 
merits  on  our  behalf.     Our  capacity  of  that  which  He  asked 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  151 

for  vjg  was  so  implied  in  these  merits,  and  the  Father's  delight 
in  these  merits  so  implied  His  delight  in  their  reproduction  in 
us,  that  the  prayer  which  proceeds  on  these  grounds  is  mani- 
festly according  to  the  will  of  the  Father — to  offer  it  as  a  part 
of  the  doing  of  the  Father's  will — to  offer  it  in  the  faith  and 
hope  of  an  answer  is  a  part  of  the  trust  in  the  Father  by  which 
He  declared  the  Father's  name,  and  is  to  be  contemplated  as 
completing  that  response  to  the  mind  of  the  Father  towards  us 
in  our  sin  and  misery,  which  was  present  but  in  part  in  the 
retrospective  confession  of  our  sin. 

And  these — the  confession  and  the  intercession — so  harmonise, 
are  so  truly  each  the  complement  of  the  other,  that  we  feel  in 
passing  from  the  one  to  the  other  our  faith  in  the  Father's 
acceptance  of  each  confirmed  by  seeing  it  in  connection  with 
the  other ;  that  is  to  say,  we  more  easily  believe  in  the  Father's 
acceptance  of  Christ's  expiatory  confession  of  our  sins  when 
we  see  that  confession  "as  contemplating  our  yet  living  to  God 
— our  partaking  in  eternal  life ;  and  we  more  easily  believe  in 
the  gift  of  eternal  life  to  those  who  have  sinned,  when  we  see 
it  in  connection  with  that  due  and  perfect  expiation  for  their 
past  sin. 

It  is  in  the  dealing  of  the  Son  with  the  Father  on  our  behalf, 
thus  in  all  its  aspects  before  us,  that  the  full  light  of  the  atone- 
ment shines  to  us.     In  the  life  of  Christ,  as  the  revelation  of 
the  Father  by  the  Son,  we  see  the  love  of  God  to  man — the 
will  of  God  for  man — the  eternal  life  which  the  Father  has 
given  to  us  in  the  Son — that  salvation  which  the  gospel  reveals 
as  the  Apostle  knew  it  when  he  invited  men  to  the  fellowship  of 
it  as  fellowship  with  the  Father  and  with  His  Son  Jesus  Christ. 
Proceeding  from  this  contemplation  of  the  light  of  eternal  life 
as  shining  in  Christ's  own  life  on  earth,  to  consider  the  Son  in 
His  dealing  with  the  Father  on  our  behalf,  and  contemplating  j 
Him  now  as  bearing  us  and  our  sins  and  miseries  on  His  heart  J 
before  the  Father,  and  uttering  all  that  in  love  to  the  Father  and  [ 
to  us  He  feels  regarding  us — all  His  divine  sorrow — all  His  desire  ; 
— all  His  hope — all  that  He  admits  and  confesses  as  against  us 


V 


152  PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

— all  that,  notwithstanding,  He  asks  for  us,  with  that  in  His 
own  human  consciousness,  in  His  following  the  Father  as  a 
dear  child  walking  in  love,  which  justifies  His  hope  in  making 
intercession — enabling  Him  to  intercede  in  conscious  righteous- 
ness as  well  as  conscious  compassion  and  love, — we  have  the 
elements  of  the  atonement  before  us  as  presented  by  the  Son 
and  accepted  by  the  Father,  and  see  the  grounds  of  the  divine 
procedure  in  granting  to  us  remission  of  our  sins  and  the  gift 
of  eternal  life.  We  are  contemplating  what  the  Son,  who 
dwells  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  and  whom  the  Father 
heareth  always,  offers  to  the  Father  as  what  He  knows  to  be 
according  to  the  Father's  will,  which,  receiving  the  Father's 
acknowledgment  as  accepted  by  Him,  is__sealed  to  us  as  the 
true  and  perfect  response  of  the  Son  to  the  Father's  heart  and 
nunc!  in  relation  to  man,  the  perfect  doing  of  His  will — the 
perfect  declaring  of  His  name. 

In  the  light  of  what  God  thus  accepted  when  Christ  through 
the  eternal  Spirit  offered  Himself  without  spot  to  God,  we  see 
the  ultimate  ground — the  ultimate  foundation  in  God — for  that 
peace  with  God  which  we  have  in  Christ.  I  say  the  ultimate 
ground  in  God  for  that  peace  with  God  which  we  have  in  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  for,  while  the  immediate  ground  is  the 
atonement  thus  present  to  our  faith,  that  is  to  say,  the  purpose 
as  fulfilled  which  our  Lord  expressed,  when  coming  to  put  away 
sin  by  the  sacrifice  of  Himself,  He  said,  "  Lo,  I  come  to  do 
thy  will,  O  God ; "  yet  clearly  it  is,  that  eternal  will  itself 
which  He  thus  came  to  do,  and  which  by  doing  it  the 
Son  has  revealed,  even  that  name  of  God  which  the  Son 
has  declared,  which  is  itself  the  ultimate  peace  and  rest  of  our 
spirits. 

In  this  full  light  of  the  atonement  our  first  conviction  is,  that 
in  this  divine  transaction  in  humanity  through  which  we  have 
the  remission  of  our  sins  and  the  gift  of  eternal  life,  there  has 
been  nothing  arbitrary.  We  see  a  righteous  and  necessary  re- 
I  lation  between  the  remission  of  our  sins  and  Christ's  expiatory 
confession   as  the  due   and  adequate  confession  of  them — a 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  153 

perfect  expiation  in  that  it  was  divine, — perfect  in  relation  to 
us  in  that  it  was  human.  We  see  a  righteous  and  necessary 
relation  between  the  gift  of  eternal  life,  and  Christ's  righteous- 
ness ;  God's  delight  in  that  righteousness  in  humanity  justifying 
to  us  the  Son's  offering  it  and  the  Father's  accepting  it  on 
behalf  of  man  to  be  the  righteousness  of  man. 

We  see  further  that  what  is  thus  offered  on  our  behalf  is  so 

i 

offered  by  the  Son  and  so  accepted  by  the  Father,  entirely  with 
the^prospective  purpose  that  it  is  to  be  reproduced  in  us.  The 
expiatory  confession  of  our  sins  which  we  have  been  contempla- 
ting is  to  be  shared  in  by  ourselves  :  to  accept  it  on  our  behalf 
was  to  accept  it  as  that  mind  in  relation  to  sin  in  the  fellowship 
of  which  we  are  to  come  to  God.  The  righteous  trust  in  the 
Father,  that  following  Him  as  a  dear  child  walking  in  love 
which  we  have  been  contemplating  as  Christ's  righteousness,  is 
to  be  shared  in  by  us :  to  accept  it  on  our  behalf  as  the 
righteousness  of  man,  was  to  accept  it  as  what  pleases  God  in 
man, — what  alone  can  please  God  in  man, — therefore  as  that  in 
the  fellowship  of  which  we  are  to  draw  near  and  live  that  life 
which  is  in  God's  favour. 

In  the  light  of  the  atonement  this  is  seen  clearly ;  and  the 
light,  as  our  eyes  become  able  to  bear  it,  reconciles  us  to  itself. 
We  soon  are  thankful  that  what  God  has  accepted  for  us  in 
^Christ,  is  also  what  God  has  given  to  us  in  Christ.  As  to  our 
past  sins,  we  not  only  see  that  the  atonement  presented  to  our 
faith  is  far  more  honouring  to  the  righteous  law  of  God  against 
which  we  had  sinned  than  any  penal  infliction  for  our  sins, 
whether  endured  by  another  for  us,  or  endured  by  ourselves  in 
abiding  misery,  could  have  been  ;  but  are  further  able  to  accept, 
as  a  most  welcome  part  of  the  gift  of  God  in  Christ,  the  power 
to  confess  our  sins  with  an  Amen  to  Christ's  confession  of 
them,  true  and  deep  in  the  measure  in  which  we  partake  in  His 
Spirit.  We  are  contented  and  thankful  to  begin  our  new  life 
with  partaking  in  the  mind  of  Christ  concerning  our  old  life, 
and  feel  the  confession  of  our  sins  to  be  the  side  on  which  the 
life  of  holiness  is  nearest  to  us,  the  form  in  which  it  naturally 


I54  PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

becomes  ours,  and  in  which  it  must  first  be  tasted  by  us  :  for 
holiness,  truth,  righteousness,  love  must  first  dawn  in  us  as 
confessions  of  sin.  So  we  welcome  the  fellowship  of  the  mind 
in  which  Christ,  by  the  grace  of  God,  tasted  death  for  every 
man  as  the  first  breathing  of  that  life  which  comes  to  us  through 
His  death.  As  to  our  interest  in  the  righteousness  of  Christ, 
we  see  that  God's  acceptance  of  that  righteousness  on  behalf 
of  man,  with  the  purpose  of  imparting  it  to  man,  is  more  glori- 
fying to  the  divine  delight  in  righteousness  than  any  other 
conception  that  has  been  entertained ;  while  we  also  feel  the 
confidence  toward  the  Father  which  we  cherish  in  receiving 
Christ  as  our  life  to  be  the  only  confidence  towards  God  which 
j  can  meet  alike  the  desires  of  His  heart  for  us,  and  the  need  of 
our  own  spirits  as  God's  offspring. 

And  thus  we  are  in  a  light  in  which  all  drawing  of  us  by  the 
Father  to  the  Son, — that  is  to  say,  all  testifying  to  our  spirits 
by  the  Father  of  our  spirits  that  He  has  given  to  us  eternal 
life  in  His  Son, — comes  to  us  as  the  personal  application  to 
ourselves  of  that  eternal  will  of  God  which  we  have  seen  re- 

(vealed  in  Christ's  dealing  with  the  Father  on  our  behalf.  This 
drawing  is  felt  to  accord  with,  and  to  be  interpreted  by,  the 
offering  of  the  Son,  and  the  acceptance  of  that  offering  by  the 
Father;  and  as  our  faith  realises  the  work  of  atonement, — 
Christ's  confession  of  our  sins,  Christ's  presentation  of  His  own 
iVhteonsness  in  humanity  in  relation  to  us,  and  the  Father's 
cceptance  of  both  on  our  behalf, — we  are  more  and  more 
able  to  understand  and  to  believe  the  testimony  of  God  in  the 
Spirit,  that  God  has  given  to  us  eternal  life,  and  that  this  life  is 
in  His  Son. 

In  proportion  as  the  light  of  the  divine  counsel  thus 
strengthens  to  us,  and  in  proportion  to  the  growing  awakedness 
of  our  spirits  to  the  proper  consciousness  of  God's  offspring  and 
realisation  of  what  the  divine  fatherliness  must  be, — what  it 
must  desire, — what  alone  can  be  satisfying  to  it, — we  come  tc 
see  the  work  of  redemption  in  the  light  of  our  ultimate  and  root 
relation  to  God  as  the  Father  of  spirits,  with  whom  abides  the 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  1 55 

fountain  of  life.  We  see  that,  however  we  had  departed  from 
God,  our  true  well-being  continued  to  be,  and  must  ever  con- 
tinue to  be,  so  bound  up  in  what  God  is  to  us  in  Himself,  and 
what  the  aspect  of  our  mind  is  towards  Him,  as  that  nothing 
external  to  this, — nothing  in  God's  outward  dealing  with  us, — 
nothing  that  He  can  give  or  we  can  receive, — nothing  that  is 
not  included  in  the  state  of  our  own  spirits  towards  God,  and 
the  response  in  our  own  hearts  to  that  which  is  in  His  heart 
towards  us, — can  be  our  salvation. 

I  have  noticed  above  how  much  we  may  deceive  ourselves 
if  we  expect  that  light  from  the  typical  sacrifices  under  the 
law  which  can  only  be  shed  upon  us  by  the  antitype  itself. 
But  there  is  an  error  from  which  these  services  might  have 
saved  men,  which  yet  has  been  fallen  into.  What  these 
services  present  to  us  as  the  picture  of  God's  spiritual  kingdom 
is,  a  temple  and  a  worship, — the  participation  in  that  worship 
being  the  good  set  forth,  disqualification  for  that  worship 
the  evil, — and  sacrifices,  and  participation  in  these  sacri- 
fices, the  means  of  deliverance  from  that  evil  and  par- 
ticipation in  that  good.  Not  to  deliver  from  punishment, 
but  to  cleanse  and  purify  for  worship,  was  the  blood  of 
the  victim  shed.  Not  the  receiving  of  any  manner  of  re- 
ward for  righteousness,  but  the  being  holy  and  accepted  wor- 
shippers, was  the  benefit  received  through  being  sprinkled 
with  the  victim's  blood.  In  the  light  of  this  centre  idea 
of  worship,  therefore,  are  we  to  see  the  sprinkling  of  all 
things  with  blood,  and  the  remission  of  sins  to  which  this 
related. 

Accordingly,  when  we  pass  from  the  type  to  the  antitype,  we 
find  worship  the  great  good  set  forth  to  us, — that  worship  in 
spirit  and  in  truth  which  the  heart  of  the  Father  craves  for, — 
that  worship  which  is  sonship, — the_  response  of  the  heart  of 
the^Son  to  the  heart  of  the  Father.  We  find  the  disqualifica- 
tion for  worship  to  be  not  a  mere  fact  of  guilt,  but  the  carnal 
mind  which  is  enmity  against  God, — the  law  in  man's  members 
warring  against  the  law  of  his  mind,  and   bringing  him  into 


u 


156  PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

captivity  to  the  law  of  sin  that  is  in  his  members.  We  find 
that  when  the  Son  of  God  came  to  be  the  needed  victim,  and 
to  put  away  sin  by  the  sacrifice  of  Himself,  He  indicated  the 
nature  and  virtue  of  His  contemplated  sacrifice  by  the  words, 
"  Lo,  I  come  to  do  thy  will,  O  God  ;  "  so  that  by  this  will  it  is 
that  we  are  sanctified  through  the  offering  of  the  body  of 
Christ, — the  blood  shed  for  the  remission  of  sins  being  the 
blood  of  Christ,  who,  through  the  eternal  Spirit,  offered  himself 
without  spot  to  God,  which  purges  the  conscience  from  dead 
works  to  serve  the  living  God. 

Thus  we  are  taught  the  strictly  moral  and  spiritual  relation 

of  the  sacrifice  to  the  worship,  we  see  the  fitness  of  the  blood 

shed  to  fit  the  spirits  which  shall  be  washed  in  it  to  partake  in 

that  worship,  we  see  the  mind  of  Christ,  which  is  in  that  blood, 

to  be  that  mind  in  the  light  of  which  and  in  the  fellowship  pi 

which  the  worshipper  will  cry,  Abba,  Father.     Finally,  we  see 

I  why  the  High  Priest  and  the  head  of  this  worship  is  the  Son  of 

I  God ;  and  why  His  relation  to  the  worshippers  is  not  "  the  law 

of  a  carnal  commandment," — not  a  mere  institution  or  arrange- 

Ument,  but  a  spiritual  relation,  viz.,  "the  power  of  an  endless 

llife," — so  that  He  is  their  High  Priest  in  that  He  is  their  life. 

All  this,  while  it  accords  with  the  place  of  sacrifices  under 
the  law,  is  to  us,  when  we  see  it  in  the  light  of  our  relation  to 
God  as  the  Father  of  our  spirits,  of  the  nature  of  necessary 
truth ;  that  is  to  say,  we  see  that  that  access  to  God  which  shall 
indeed  be  to  us  a  way  into  the  holiest,  must  accord  with  the 
spiritual  constitution  of  our  being,  with  the  nature  of  holiness, 
and  with  the  nature  of  the  separation  from  God  which  sin 
causes ;  therefore,  that  no  permission  or  authority  to  come  to 
God  can  be  of  any  avail  to  us,  apart  from  the  mind  in  which 
alone  he  who  has  sinned  can  in  truth  draw  near  to  God ;  and 
this  mind  we  see  is  just  that  into  which  the  sinner  enters  in  the 
Amen  of  faith  to  the  voice  that  is  in  the  blood  of  Christ,  viz., 
Christ's  confession  of  our  sins.  In  the  faith  of  God's  accept- 
ance of  that  confession  on  our  behalf,  we  receive  strength  to 
say  Amen  to  it, — to  join  in  it — and,  joining  in  it,  we  find  it  a 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  1 57 

living  way  to  Gnrl  ;  and  at  the  same  time  we  feel  certain  that 
there  is  no  other^way, — that  we  get  near  to  God  just  in  the 
measure  in  which  in  the  Spirit  of  Christ  we  thus  livingly  adopt 
His  confession  of  our  sins, — in  this  measure  and  no  further. 

Permission  to  draw  near  to  God,  seen  thus  in  the  light  of 
the  mind  in  which  to  draw  near, — that  is  to  say,  the  remission 
of  our  sins  seen  in  connection  with  Christ's  confession  of  our 
sins, — this  is  the  way  of  life  open  before  us  ; — a  way  which  is 
to  our  faith  a  part  of  the  gift  of  eternal  life.  For  though  the 
right  feelings  for  us  to  cherish,  though  the  suitable  feelings  in 
which  to  approach  to  God,  and  in  truth,  the  only  feelings  in 
which  the  consciousness  of  having  sinned  can  coexist  with  the 
experience  of  communion  with  God,  still  these  feelings  alto- 
gether belong  to  the  Son  of  God, — to  the  Spirit  of  sonship, — 
and  are  possible  to  us  only  in  the  fellowship  of  the  Son's  con- 
fidence in  the  Father's  fatherly  forgiveness,  being  quickened  in 
us  by  the  faith  of  that  fatherly  forgiveness,  as  uttered  in  God's 
acceptance  of  Christ's  confession  and  intercession  on  our 
behalf. 

I  have  above  insisted  upon  the  importance  of  the  difference 
between  a  legal  standing  and  a  filial  standing,  and  on  the 
necessity,  in  considering  the  nature  of  the  atonement,  of  keep- 
ing continually  in  view  that  in  redeeming  us  who  were  under 
the  law  the  divine  purpose  was  that  we  should  receive  the 
adoption  of  sons.  This  necessity  is  becoming,  I  trust,  more 
and  more  clear  as  we  proceed.  The  virtue  required  in  the 
blood  of  Christ  is  seen  to  be  necessarily  spiritual — a  power  to 
influence  the  spirits  washed  in  it  by  faith,  when  our  need  is 
seen  as  the  need  of  those  whose  life  lies  in  God's  favour, 
whose  well-being  must  consist  in  communion  with  God,  whose 
salvation  is  joining  in  that  worship  of  God  which  is  in  spirit 
and  in  truth.  And  the  spiritual  virtue  needed  is  determined 
to  be  the  law  of  the  Spirit  of  the  life  that  is  in  Christ,  the  life 
of  sonship.  when  it  is  understood  that  the  worship  in  spirit  and 
in  truth  is  that  which  the  Father  seeketh  as  the  Father, — the 
worship  which  is  sonship,  that  of  which  the  son  is  High  Priest 


li  sat- 
iation    iij/ 
jue  to     lf|| 


158  PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

and  head.  But  it  further  appears  to  me,  that  this  conception 
of  the  worship  for  which  the  blood  of  Christ  is  to  qualify,  sheds 
back  a  light  on  the  atonement,  in  which  we  are  justified  in  say 
ing  that  Christ's  confession  of  our  sin  was-ftet~onjy  the  expiation 
due  to  the  righteous  law  of  God,  but  also  the  expiation  due 
the  fatherly  heart  of  God. 

To  speak  of  an  atonement  as  due  to  the  fatherly  heart  of 
God  is  foreign  to  our  habits  of  mind  on  the  subject  of  atone- 
ment. Yet  I  believe  that  in  proportion  as  we  see  the  expiation 
that  is  in  Christ's  confession  of  man's  sin  to  be  that  which  has 
truly  met  the  demand  of  the  divine  righteousness,  we  must  see 
that  the  filial  spirit  that  was  in  that  confession,  and  which 
necessarily  took  into  account  what  our  being  rebellious  children 
was  to  the  Father's  heart,  constituted  the  -perfection  of  the 
expiation.  This  is  no  uncalled  for  refinement  of  thought.  The 
pardon  which  we  need  is  the  pardon  of  the  Father  of  our 
spirits, — the  way  into  the  holiest  which  we  need  is  the  way 
into  our  Father's  heart;  and  therefore,  the  blood  of  Christ 
which  hath  consecrated  such  a  way  for  us,  must  have  power  to 
cleanse  our  spirits  from  that  spiritual  pollution  which  defiles 
rebellious  children,  that  is  to  say,  must  contain  the  new 
mind  in  which  it  pertains  to  rebellious  children  to  return  to 
the  Father. 

And  this  consideration  manifestly  confirms  the  view  now 
taken  of  the  atonement.  In  proportion  as  it  is  seen  that  that 
which  expiates  sin  must  be  something  that  meets  a  demand  of 
the  divine  righteousness,  the  superiority  of  a  moral  and  spiritual 
atonement,  consisting  in  the  right  response  from  humanity  to 
the  divine  mind  in  relation  to  sin,  becomes  clear.  But  that 
superiority  is  surely  rendered  still  more  unequivocal  when,  from 
the  conception  of  God  as  the  righteous  ruler,  we  ascend  to  that 
of  God  as  the  Father  of  spirits.  It  is  then  that  we  fully  realise 
that  there  is  no  real  fitness  to  atone  for  sin  in  penal  sufferings, 
whether  endured  by  ourselves  or  by  another  for  us.  Most 
clearly  to  the  Father's  feelings  such  sufferings  would  be  no 
atonement ;  and  yet  are  not  these  the  feelings  which  call  for  an 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  1 59 

atonement, — is  it  not  to  them  that  expiation  is  most  right- 
eously due  ? 

And  I  would  ask  some  attention  to  this  question,  because  I 
know  that  weakness  has  been  supposed  to  be  introduced  into 
our  conceptions  of  the  divine  requirements,  by  giving  promin- 
ence to  the  idea  that  God  is  our  Father.  Those  who  have  this 
impression,  and  who  fear  the  weakening  of  our  sense  of  the 
divine  authority,  through  giving  the  root  place  in  our  system  to 
our  relation  to  God  as  the  Father  of  our  spirits,  would  say,  "  It 
is  the  righteous  ruler  and  judge  who  calls  for  an  atonement, 
not  the  Father ;  the  Father  would  receive  us  without  an  atone- 
ment." Certainly,  such  an  atonement  as  they  have  before  their 
minds  in  saying  this,  would  be  no  response  to  any  demand  that 
we  can  ascribe  to  the  Father's  heart, — as  neither,  indeed,  I 
believe  would  it  be  to  any  demand  which,  in  the  light  of  the 
divine  righteousness,  we  can  ascribe  to  the  Judge  of  all  the 
earth. 

But  this  associating  of  moral  weakness,  and,  as  it  were, 
easiness,  with  the  idea  of  the  fatherliness  that  is  in  God,  is 
altogether  an  error ;  neither  should  any  place  be  given  to  it. 
"  If  ye  call  on  the  Father,  who,  without  respect  of  persons, 
judgeth  according  to  every  man's  work,  pass  the  time  of  your 
sojourning  herein  fear."  The_ Father's  heart  did  demand  an 
atoning  sacrifice.  Is  not  this  clear,  if  the  worship  in  rela- 
tion to  which  the  victim's  blood  was  shed,  is,  indeed,  sonship  ? 
The  Father's  heart  did  demand  the  shedding  of  blood  in 
order  to  the  remission  of  sins,  because  it  demanded  blood  in 
which  justice  would  be  rendered  to  the  fatherliness  which 
had  been  sinned  against,  and  which,  therefore,  would  have 
virtue  in  it  to  purge  our  spirits  from  their  unfilial  state,  and  to 
purify  us  in  respect  of  the  pollution  that  attaches  to  us  as 
rebellious  children. 

We  might,  indeed,  say  that  the  Father's  heart  asked  for  an 
atonement  for  our  sin,  simply  on  the  ground  that  it  desired  us 
back  to  itself,  and  therefore,  desired  a  living  way  of  return  for 
us,  and  one  related  in  its  nature  to  the  nature  of  our  departure, 


_aSk^ 


l6o  PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

in  order  that  our  return  might  be  a  real  return ;  and  that  such  a 
way  could  only  be  that  which  was  opened  by  the  Son  of  God, 
when  He  confessed  the  sins  of  God's  rebellious  children  as  the 
Son,  who  abides  ever  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  alone  could : 
for  He,  indeed,  alone  could  know  the  exceeding  sinfulness  of 
our  sins,  and  feel  regarding  them  in  that  mind,  the  fellowship 
of  which  would  be  to  us  our  purgation  from  them.  But  this 
moral  and  spiritual  impossibility  of  our  returning  to  the  Father 
of  our  spirits,  except  on  such  a  path  as  this  which  Christ  has 
opened  for  us  through  the  rent  veil  of  His  flesh,  and  in  the 
power  of  that  endless  life  in  which  He  is  related  to  us  as  our 
High  Priest  over  the  house  of  God, — this  impossibility  in 
respect  of  the  very  constitution  of  our  spiritual  being,  can  only 
be  the  counterpart  of  a  necessity  in  the  divine  nature,  in  respect 
of  which,  the  right  feelings  of  the  Father  of  spirits  must  be  con- 
ceived of  as  demanding  that  expiation  which  we  are  now  con- 
templating, rendering  it  impossible  that  He  should  receive  us 
with  welcome  and  acknowledgment,  if  coming  by  any  other  path 
than  the  fellowship  of  that  expiation.  God's  righteous  glory  in 
us,  no  less  than  our  special  and  peculiar  blessedness  in  God  as 
redeemed  sinners,  implies  that  in  our  consciousness  in  drawing 
near  to  God,  our  future  shall  not  be  cut  off  from  our  past. 
Therefore,  that  is  not  to  be  in  time  or  in  eternity;  nor  is  our 
life  of  sonship  in  its  highest  development  to  be  without  the 
element  of  the  remembrance,  that  we  did  not  from  the  first  cry 
Abba,  Father ;  "  Unto  Him  that  loved  us,  and  washed  us  from 
our  sins  in  His  own  blood,  and  hath  made  us  kings  and  priests 
unto  God  and  His  Father ;  to  Him  be  glory  and  dominion,  for 
ever  and  ever,  Amen."  We  may  say,  that  without  the  shedding 
\of  the  blood  of  Christ,  the  Father  of  spirits  could  not  receive 
back  to  the  bosom  of  His  love  His  rebellious  children,  as  well 
as  that  without  the  shedding  of  the  blood  of  Christ,  it  was 
morally  and  spiritually  impossible  for  them  to  return.  For 
these,  indeed,  are  but  two  aspects  of  one  spiritual  tmth. 

What  I  thus  labour  to  impress  on  the  mind  of  my  reader  is, 
that  the  necessity  for  the  atonement  which  we  are  contemplat- 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  l6l 

ing,  was  moral  and  spiritual,  arising  out  of  our  relation  to  God 
as  the  Father  of  spirits ;  and  not  merely  legal,  arising  out  of 
our  being  under  the  law.  In  truth,  its  existence  as  a  legal 
necessity  arose  out  of  its  existence  as  a  moral  and  spiritual 
necessity ;  therefore,  the  legal  difficulty  is  to  be  contemplated 
as  what  could  be,  and  has  been,  removed  only  in  connection 
with,  and  because  of,  the  removal  of  the  spiritual  difficulty.  In 
other  words,  we  have  remission  of  our  sins  in  the  blood  of 
Christ,  only  because  that  blood  has  consecrated  for  us  a  way 
into  the  holiest,  and  in  this  relation,  and  in  this  alone,  can 
remission  of  sin  be  understood. 

Therefore,  it  is  altogether  an  error  to  associate  weakness  and 
easiness  with  the  fatherliness  of  God,  and  severity  and  stern 
demand  with  His  character  as  a  moral  governor.  What  severity, 
what  fixedness  of  righteous  demand  has  to  be  calculated  upon, 
is  to  be  seen  as  first  in  the  Father,  and  then  in  the  moral 
governor,  because  in  the  Father.  And,  although  there  had 
been  in  the  universe  but  one  moral  being  related  to  God  as 
each  of  us  is,  and  though  God  should  be  contemplated  in  His 
dealing  with  that  individual  being  as  acting  exclusively  as  the 
Father  of  that  spirit,  seeking  to  realise  the  yearning  of  His 
fatherly  heart  in  relation  to  that  spirit, — the  necessity  for  the 
atonement  would,  as  respected  that  individual,  have  been  still 
what  it  has  been;  nor  could  the  fulfilment  of  the  Father's  desire 
for  that  one  man  have  been  possible,  otherwise  than  through 
the  opening  of  that  fountain  for  sin  and  for  uncleanness  which 
is  presented  to  our  faith  in  the  shedding  of  Christ's  blood. 
And  I  never  expect  to  see  the  real  righteous  severity  Of  God 
truly  and  healthfully  realised,  and  the  unchangeable  and 
essential  conditions  of  salvation  apprehended,  and  hope 
cherished  only  in  being  conformed  to  them,  until  the  blood  of 
Christ  is  thus  seen  in  its  direct  relation  to  our  participation  in 
eternal  life. 

So  far  is  it  from  being  the  case,  that  giving  the  root  place  to 
our  relation  to  God  as  the  fountain  of  life  and  the  Father  of 
spirits,  and  subordinating  the  relation  in  which  we  stand  to  Him 


1 62  PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

as  a  Lawgiver  and  as  a  Sovereign, — so  far  is  this  from  introduc- 
ing weakness  into  our  conceptions  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
laws  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  that  it  is  the  seeing  the  Father  in 
the  Son,  and  the  desire  of  the  Father  for  us  realised  in  the  Son, 
which  ultimately  and  absolutely  shuts  us  up  to  the  faith,  that 
there  is  for  us  but  one  path  of  life,  because  but  one  path  to  the 
Father.  "I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life;  no  man  cometh 
unto  the  Father  but  by  me."  These  words  of  the  Son,  who 
dwelleth  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  heard  as  shedding  light 
on  the  kingdom  of  God,  reveal  a  fixed  and  immutable  constitu- 
tion of  things.  No  words  can  be  more  exclusive,  more  un- 
bending, more  remote  from  all  opening  of  a  door  to  the  hope 
of  being  easily  dealt  with, — the  hope  of  experiencing  a  soft, 
accommodating  indulgence,  that  in  weak  tenderness  would 
bend  the  divine  requirement  to  what  we  are. 

"  No  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  me," — these  words 
raise  us  up  to  a  region  in  which  there  is,  there  can  be  nothing 
arbitrary.  A  sovereign  Lord  and  moral  governor,  appointing 
laws  and  enforcing  them  by  the  administration  of  a  system  of 
rewards  and  punishments,  may  be  contemplated  as  severe  and 
uncompromising  in  the  exercise  of  his  righteous  rule, — but  he 
may  also  be  thought  of  as  merciful  and  considerate  of  individual 
cases ;  and  the  outward  and  arbitrary  nature  of  the  rewards  and 
punishments  which  he  is  believed  to  dispense  makes  his  award- 
ing the  former  on  easier  terms,  and  withholding  or  mitigating 
the  latter  according  to  circumstances, — and,  it  may  be,  under 
the  influence  of  mercy, — what  can  be  supposed,  and  what,  in 
thinking  of  God  as  such  a  governor  and  Lord,  and  of  ourselves 
as  the  subjects  of  His  rule,  we  can  turn  to  the  thought  of  with 
a  vague  hope.  And  such  a  governor  and  Lord  God  is  in  the 
ordinary  thoughts  of  men,  and  such  a  vague  hope  towards  God 
is  the  ordinary  hope  of  men.  And  on  such  a  conception  of  their 
relation  to  God  have  men  ignorantly  engrafted  the  gospel, — con- 
ceiving of  it  as  giving  a  special  and  definite  form  to  the  indefinite 
combination  of  judgment  and  mercy,  which  has  sustained  that 
vague  hope  of  salvation  which  they  had  cherished.     But  the 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  163 

gospel,  truly  apprehended,  raises  us  into  another  and  a  higher 
region, — a  region,  indeed,  in  which  divine  mercy  or  clemency, 
as  previously  conceived  of,  is  felt  to  have  been  but  as  the 
dimmest  twilight  of  kindness  and  goodwill  towards  men,  in 
comparison  of  the  noonday  light  of  the  love  of  the  Father  of 
spirits  to  His  offspring, — but  a  region  also  in  which  no  arbitrary 
dealing  with  us  can  find  a  place.  In  the  light  that  shines  in 
that  region  it  is  clear  to  us  that  the  relation  between  the 
blessedness  that  is  seen  there  and  the  Tightness  that  is  recog- 
nised there  is  fixed  and  immutable.  So  that  the  liberty  which, 
in  the  lower  region,  we  ascribe  to  mercy,  is  here  found  not 
to  belong  to  love;  nor  the  discretion  which  we  ventured  to 
attribute  to  the  righteous  governor,  found  to  pertain  to  the 
loving  Father ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  the  law  of  the  Father — the 
principle  on  which  happiness  is  dispensed  by  Him  to  His 
offspring  as  His  offspring — is  found  to  be  fixed  and  altogether 
unbending,  incapable  of  accommodation  in  a  way  of  pity,  or 
indulgence,  or  consideration  of  circumstances.  "No  man 
cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  the  Son."  All  modification  of 
this  law  is  impossible;  for  sonship  and  fatherliness  are  mutually 
related  kLJan_elernaLrelation.  The  Father  as  the  Father,  can 
only  receive  His  offspring  to  Himself  as  coming  to  Him  in  the 
spirit  of  sonship; — neither  otherwise  than  as  coming  in  the 
spirit  of  sonship  can  they  in  spirit  and  in  truth  draw  near  to 
Him. 

I  have  spoken  of  a  way  into  the  holiest  as  what  must  have  its 
nature  determined  by  the  nature  of  holiness ;  so  a  way  to  the 
Father  must  have  its  nature  determined  by  the  nature  of  fatherli- 
ness. These  are  two  aspects  of  one  spiritual  reality;  a  reality, 
reader,  which  we  must  steadfastly  contemplate,  to  the  certainty 
and  fixedness  of  which  we  must  be  reconciled, — a  reality  in  the 
light  of  which  we  must  see  the  free  pardon  of  sin  and  redeeming 
love,  and  all  the  divine  mercy  to  us  sinners  which  the  gospel  re- 
veals. In  that  lower  moral  region  to  which  I  have  referred,  in 
which  men  are  not  dealing  with  the  Father  of  spirits  but  with 
the  moral  governor  of  the  universe  (but  whose  moral  govern- 


/wv 


[64  PROSPECTIVE  ASPECT 

ment,  while  thus  not  illumined  by  the  light  of  His  fatherliness,  is 
never  understood),  we  may  be  occupied  with  the  punishment  of 
sin  and  the  rewards  of  righteousness,  in  a  way  that  permits  us 
to  connect  the  atonement  directly  with  the  idea  of  punishment 
and  reward,  and  invests  it  simply  with  the  interest  of  that  desire 
to  escape  punishment  and  to  be  assured  of  happiness,  which 
may,  even  in  the  lowest  spiritual  state,  be  strong  and  lively  in 
us.  But  if  we  will  come  to  the  atonement,  not  venturing  in  our 
darkness  to  predetermine  anything  as  to  its  nature,  but  expect- 
ing light  to  shine  upon  our  spirits  from  it,  even  the  light  of 
eternal  life ;  if  we  will  suffer  it  to  inform  us  by  its  own  light 
why  we  needed  it,  and  what  its  true  value  to  us  is,  £he Jwnis h- 
ment  of  sin  will  fall  into  its  proper  place  as  testifying  to  th'e 
existence  of  an  evil  greater  than  itself,  even  sin;  from  which 
greater  evil  it  is  the  direct  object  of  the  atonement  to  deliver  us, 
\ — deliverance,  irom  punishment  being  but  a  secondary  result. 
And  the  reward  of  righteousness  will  be  raised  in  our  concep- 
tions from  the  character  of  something  that  can  be  ours  by  the 
adjudication  of  the  judge  on  arbitrary  grounds  which  mercy 
may  recommend,  to  its  true  dignity  as  that  blessedness  which  is 
essentially  inherent  in  righteousness,  and  in  that  glorifying  and 
enjoying  of  God  of  which  righteousness  alone  is  the  capacity, 
and  which  no  name,  nor  title,  nor  arbitrary  arrangement  can 
confer. 

The  atonement,  thus  seenjby  its  own  light,  is  not  what  in  our 
darkness  we  desired  ;  but  it  soon  reconciles  us  to  itself,  for  it 
sets  us  right  as  to  the  true  secret  of  well  being.  A  spiritual 
constitution  of  things  that  would  have  been  more  accommodat- 
ing to  what  we  were  through  sin,  we  soon  see  as  precluded  alike 
by  the  nature  of  God, — and  the  nature  of  man  in  its  relation 
to  the  nature  of  God, — a  relation,  to  violate  which  would  not 
be  the  salvation  but  the  destruction  of  man.  We,  indeed,  see 
ourselves  encompassed  by  necessities,  instead  of  flexible,  com- 
promising weak  tendernesses;  but  they  are  necessities  to  which 
we  are  altogether  reconciled,  for  we  are  reconciled  to  God. 
One  has  said,  "  It  is  a  profitable  sweet  necessity  to  be  forced 


OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  165 

on  the  naked  arm  of  Jehovah."  That  "no  man  cometh  to 
the  Father  but  by  the  Son"  is  the  great  and  all-including 
necessity  that  is  revealed  to  us  by  the  atonement.  But,  as 
combined  with  the  gift  of  the  Son  to  us  as  the  living  way 
to  the  Father,  we  rejoice  to  find  ourselves  shut  up  to  "  so 
great  salvation." 


1 66 


!l 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

FURTHER  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FIXED  AND  NECESSARY 
CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION  AS  DETERMINING  THE  NATURE 
OF     THE     ATONEMENT    AND     THE     FORM     OF     THE     GRACE    OF 

GOD    TO    MAN. 

T  HAVE  said  that  the  character  of  the  Mosaic  institutions, 
A  as  commented  upon  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  ought 
to  have  saved  us  from  the  direct  connecting  of  the  atonement 
with  the  subject  of  rewards  and  punishments,  and  more 
especially  from  that  direct  connecting  of  forgiveness  through 
the  blood  of  Christ  with  exemption  from  punishment  which 
has  so  prevailed,  seeing  that  the  blood  of  the  victim  was 
intended  to  purify  and  cleanse  for  participation  in  worship. 
In  this  light  as  to  the  relation  of  the  sacrifice  to  worship,  and 
seeing  the  worship  typified  to  be  that  worship  which  is  sonship, 
we  see  how  perfectly  that  which  our  Lord  taught  in  saying, 
"  No  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  me  " — meaning  to 
fix  the  attention  of  His  disciples  on  what  He  Himself  was  in 
their  sight  as  the  revealer  of  the  Father  by  the  manifested  life 
of  sonship, — accords  with  the  elements  of  confidence  in  draw- 
ing near  to  God,  which  the  Apostle  enumerates  in  exhorting 
men  to  "  draw  near  in  the  full  assurance  of  faith,  having  their 
hearts  sprinkled  from  an  evil  conscience,  and  their  bodies 
washed  with  pure  water."  That  our  Lord  and  the  Apostle 
must  have  contemplated  the  same  thing  as  the  due  and 
accepted  worship  we  cannot  doubt.     But  it  is  only  when  we 


CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION.  ify 

understand  that  the  shedding  of  the  blood  of  Christ  had  direct 
reference  to  our  relation  to  God  as  the  Father  of  our  spirits, 
and  to  the  opening  of  a  way  in  which  we  as  rebellious  children 
can  return  to  the  bosom  of  the  Father's  love,  according  to  the 
truth  of  what  the  Father  is,  and  what  sonship  is,  that  we  see 
that  "  having  boldness  to  enter  into  the  holiest  by  the  blood 
of  Jesus,  by  a  new  and  living  way  which  He  hath  consecrated 
for  us  through  the  veil,  that  is  to  say  His  flesh,  and  having  an 
High  Priest  over  the  house  of  God,"  is  the  same  thing  with  the 
Son  of  God  being  to  us  a  living  way  to  the  Father. 

The  doctrinal  form  of  thought  which  the  language  of  the 
Apostle  presents,  would  probably  have  been  more  difficult  of 
apprehension  to  the  disciples,  who  had  yet  to  learn  that  "  it 
behoved  Christ  first  to' suffer  and  afterwards  to  enter  into  His 
glory,"  than  even  their  Lord's  language  as  to  their  own  favoured 
position  as  the  chosen  companions  of  the  path  of  Him  who 
could  say,  "  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father." 
Yet,  afterwards,  they  could  look  back  and  see  the  identity  of 
what  they  subsequently  learned  with  what  had  been  presented 
to  their  faith  in  their  personal  acquaintance  with  Christ. 
These  disciples?  indeed,  knew  not  then  the  form  which  the 
work  of  redemption  must  take  in  being  perfected,  but  they 
had  received  under  the  Lord's  personal  ministry  that  spiritual 
teaching,  for  the  want  of  which,  no  familiarity  with  the  full 
record  ot  the  rinished  work  of  Christ  can  compensate,  and  in 
the  absence  of  which,  our  study  of  that  record  never  is  safe ; 
for  already  they  were  fit  subjects  for  that  high  testimony  from 
their  Lord,  "  They  are  not  of  the  world,  even  as  I  am  not  of 
the  world;"  they  had  received  the  Son  as  coming  to  them  in 
the  Father's  name,  and  that  was  quickened  in  them  which  was 
according  to  the  truth  of  our  relation  to  God  as  the  Father  of 
our  spirits.  Their  attraction  to  their  Master  was  that  they 
felt  that  He  "  had  the  words  of  eternal  life ;" — their  cry  was, 
"Shew  us  the  Father,  and  it  sufficeth  us;"  and  so,  when 
the  true  worship,  of  which  their  temple  service  had  been  a 
type,  was  subsequently  clearly  revealed  to  them  as  that  worship 


1 68      FURTHER  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FIXED 

which  is  son  ship.,  and  when  they  learned  distinctly  to  contem- 
plate the  heart  of  the  Father  as  the  Holy  of  Holies,  they  were 
prepared  to  know  the  Son  of  God  as  both  the  sacrifice  and  the 
High  Priest. 

This  unity  of  their  recollections  of  the  Lord  .as  they  knew 
Him  so  nearly,  with  the  light  that  afterwards  shone  to  them  in 
His  blood  shed  for  the  remission  of  sins;  and  in  .His  relation 
to  them  as  the  High  Priest  over  the  house  of  God,  is  illustrated 
to  us  by  that  opening  of  the  first   Epistle  of  John  which  has 
\  already  engaged  our  attention.     The  fellowship  with  the  Father 
<^?  \  and  with  his  Son  Jesus  Christ,  which  the  Apostle  had  entered 
into  in  receiving  the  knowledge  of  eternal  life,  we  have  already 
(noticed.     This  divine  fellowship  he  proceeds  at  the  5th  verse 
to  speak  of  as  calling  Him  to  declare  to  men  as  the  divine 
message — the  Gospel — "  that  God  is  light,  and  in  him  is  no 
darkness  at  all."     This  statement  in  the  connexion  in  which  it 
is  made  has  clearly  the  same  fixedness  of  character,  as  respects 
the  terms  of  grace  and  the  way  of  salvation,  which  we  have 
seen  in  the  Saviour's  own  words,  "  No  man  cometh  unto  the 
Father  but  by  me."     For  he  adds,  "  If  we  say  that  we  have 
fellowship  with  Him,  and  walk  in  darkness,  we  lie,  and  do  not 
the  truth  :  but  if  we  walk  in  the  light,  as  He  is  in  the  light,  we 
have  fellowship  one  with  another."     This  is,  indeed,  but  the 
same    spiritual   law   or   necessity   elsewhere    declared    in   the 
words,  "  there  is  no  communion  between  light  and  darkness." 
But  the  experimental  character  of  the  Apostle's  language  as 
used  by  one  claiming  to  have  the  fellowship  with  God  of  which 
he  speaks — fellowship  with  the  Father  and  with  His  Son  Jesus 
Christ, — claiming  through  knowledge  of  Christ  both  to  know 
that  God  is  light,  and  to  be  walking  in  that  light,  and  making 
His  own  experience  in  this  spiritual  region  known  to  us  with 
the  purpose  and  hope  of  our  coming  into  the  fellowship  of  it, 
and  so  being  saved  ; — this  brings  the  truth  that  "  there  is  no 
communion  between  light  and  darkness  " — very  near  to  us — 
very  home  to  us  :  the  felt  unity  of  what  the  disciples  came  to 
know,  when  they  came  to  understand  that  "  it  behoved  Christ 


AND  NECESSARY  CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION.     169 

to  suffer  and  afterwards  to  enter  into  His  glory,"  with  what  had 
been  presented  to  their  faith  in  the  life  of  Christ,  and  what 
their  Lord  had  commended  to  them  as  the  light  of  life  when 
He  said,  "  I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life:  no  man  cometh 
unto  the  Father,  but  by  me,"  coming  fully  out  in  the  words 
which  follow,  "If  we  walk  in  the  light,  as  He  is  in  the  light, 
we  have  fellowship  one  with  another,  and  the  blood  of  Jesus 
Christ  His  Son  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin"  Not  surely — what  I 
fear  these  words  too  often  suggest — a  cleansing  having  reference 
to  our  exposure  to  the  punishment  of  sin,  but  a  cleansing  having 
reference  to  the  pollution  of  sin  itself.  Not,  therefore,  a  cleansing 
spoken  of  in  a  legal  sense,  and  as  something  over  and  above 
the  spiritual  cleansing  implied  in  walking  in  the  light  of  God 
and  having  fellowship  with  God,  but  a  cleansing  having  effect 
in  that  fellowship,  and  which  is  referred  to  2^~exf>laifii?ig  that 
fellowship,  explaining  how  it  comes  to  pass  in  a  way  that  gives 
the  glory  of  that  fellowship  to  the  blood  of  Christ  in  which 
such  cleansing  power  is  found.  For  we  cannot  doubt  that  the 
power  to  cleanse  which  here  the  words,  "  the  blood  of  Jesus 
Christ  His  Son  cleanseth  from  all  sin,"  declare,  is  the  same 
that  is  contemplated  where  it  is  said,  "  If  the  blood  of  bulls 
and  of  goats,  and  the  ashes  of  an  heifer  sprinkling  the  unclean, 
sanctifieth  to  the  purifying  of  the  flesh  :  how  much  more  shall 
the  blood  of  Christ,  who  through  the  eternal  Spirit  offered 
Himself  without  spot  to  God,  purge  your  conscience  from  dead 
works  to  serve  the  living  God  ?"  To  say  that  the  blood  of 
Christ  "  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin,"  and  to  say  that  it  "  purges 
the  conscience  from  dead  works,  to  serve  the  living  God,"  are 
but  different  ways  of  declaring  the  spiritual  power  of  the 
atonement  when  apprehended  by  faith, — asserting  its  fitness  for 
being  partaken  in  by  us  as  the  mind  of  Christ  in  relation  to 
our  sin.  And  so  the  words  are  added  in  relation  to  our  own 
participation  in  Citf^^-g^piatorj_c^nfession oLour  sin,  "  If  we 
say  that  we  have  no"  sin,  we  deceive  ourselves,  and  the  truth 
is  not  in  us.  If  we  confess  our  sins,  He  is  faithful  and  just  to 
forgive  us  our  sins,  and  to  cleanse  us  from  all  unrighteousness." 


\kk 


V< 


170     FURTHER  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FIXED 

So  he  proceeds  to  speak  of  Christ  as  our  advocate  with  the 
Father,  and  the  propitiation  for  our  sins  :  "  My  little  children, 
these  things  write  I  unto  you,  that  ye  sin  not,"  for  he  has  been 
shutting  them  up  to  a  salvation  which  is  walking  in  the  light 
of  God,  and  is  fellowship  with  God.  And  that  they  may  feel 
the  reasonableness  of  proposing  to  them  "that  they  sin  not," 
he  reminds  them  that  "if  any  man  sin,  we  have  an  Advocate 
with  the  Father,  Jesus  Christ  the  righteous;"  and  that  "  He  is 
the  propitiation  for  our  sins."  Of  course,  if  any  man  sin  and 
then  find  comfort  in  remembering  that  he  has  an  advocate 
with  the  Father,  this  implies  that  with  the  thought  of  that 
advocate  will  rise  the  thought  of  the  pardon  of  sin ;  but  it  is 
clear  that  the  pardon  of  sin  is  here  rather  implied  than  ex- 
pressed, for  the  value  and  use  of  the  advocate  directly  contem- 
plated is  His  value  to  those  who  are  called  "  not  to  sin  ;" 
therefore  is  the  "righteousness"  of  the  advocate  that  on  which 
attention  is  fixed  :  for  He  is  made  of  God  unto  us  righteousness 
and  righteousness  is  in  Him  for  us  as  the  sap  is  in  the  vine  for 
the  branch.  On  the  ground  of  the  sap  that  is  in  the  vine, 
therefore,  are  the  branches  here  exhorted  to  bear  fruit ;  which 
also  determines  the  light  in  which  the  Saviour  is  contemplated 
when  it  is  added,  "  He  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins  f  and 
that  this  is  spoken  in  direct  reference  to  Christ's  righteousness, 
and  the  fitness  of  that  righteousness  to  meet  the  need  of 
the  sinner  as  being  deliverance  from  sin.  In  other  words, 
Christ  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins  as  He  is  the  way  into  the 
holiest — the  living  way  to  the  Father.  ^ 

And  He  is  the  propitiation  :  for  propitiation  is  not  a  thing 
which  He  has  accomplTsl^ecl  and  on  which  we  are  thrown  back 
as  on  a  past  fact.  He  is  the  propitiation.  Propitiation  for  us 
sinners, — reconciliation  to  God, — oneness  with  God  abides  in 
Christ.  When  we  sin,  and  so  separate  ourselves  from  God,  if 
we  would  return  and  not  continue  in  sin  we  must  remember 
this.  For  it  is  in  this  view  that  the  Apostle,  writing  to  us  "that 
we  sin  not,"  reminds  us  of  the  propitiation — not  a  work  of 
Christ,  but  the  living  Christ  Himself :  and  so  he  proceeds — 


AND  NECESSARY  CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION.     171 

"  Hereby  we  do  know  that  we  know  Him  if  we  keep  His  com- 
mandments ; "  the  direct  effect  of  knowing  Christ  the  propitia- 
tion for  sin  being  keeping  Christ's  commandments.  And  because 
of  the  power  to  keep  Christ's  commandments,  which  is  ours  in 
Christ  as  the  propitiation  for  our  sins,  the  Apostle,  in  words  simi- 
lar to  those  which  he  had  just  used  with  reference  to  the  claim 
to  fellowship  with  God  who  is  light,  adds,  "  He  that  saith  I  know 
Him,"  that  is  Christ  the  propitiation  for  our  sins,  "and 
keepeth  not  His  commandments  is  a  liar,  and  the  truth  is 
not  in  him.  But  whoso  keepeth  His  word,  in  him  verily  is 
the  love  of  God  perfected," — the  end  of  this  gift  of  love 
accomplished.  "  Hereby  know  we  that  we  are  in  Him.  He 
that  saith  he  abideth  in  Him  ought  himself  also  so  to  walk  even 
as  He  walked." 

We  need  not  then  be  uncertain  what  the  reference  is  in 
which  the  "righteousness  "  of  the  Advocate  with  the  Father  is 
here  contemplated,  or  doubt  that,  by  abiding  in  Christ  is  here 
meant,  that  abiding  in  which  the  branch  receives  the  sap  of  the 
vine,  that  it  may  bear  fruit.  And  yet  I  know  that  this 
directness  of  relation  between  knowing  Christ  as  the  propitia- 
tion for  our  sins,  and  walking  as  He  walked,  some  may  deny, 
and  that,  retaining  that  meaning  for  the  word  "  propitiation  " 
which  the  conception  of  an  atonement  as  substituted  penal 
suffering  has  given  to  it,  it  may  be  said  that  it  is  as  a 
motive  to  gratitude,  because  of  the  deliverance  from  punish- 
ment through  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  that  a  moral  power  is 
here  ascribed  to  Christ's  being  the  propitiation  for  our  sins. 
The  impression  of  directness  in  this  matter,  that  is,  of  direct 
dealing  with  sin  itself  as  the  evil,  and  of  recognition  of  Christ 
as  the  deliverer  from  sin,  which  not  only  the  verses  I 
have  quoted  but  the  whole  Epistle  gives,  is,  however,  so 
strong  that  I  cannot  but  hope  that,  in  spite  of  associations  of 
old  standing,  I  may  not  in  vain  have  directed  the  reader's 
attention  to  it. 

And,  with  a  similar  hope,  though  with  the  same  knowledge 
that  deep-rooted  associations  stand  in  the  way,  I  would  now 


172      FURTHER  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FIXED 


take  the  reader  to  a  parallel  passage  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews.  I  refer  to  the  2nd  chapter,  verses  17,  18,  "Where- 
fore in  all  things  it  behoved  Him  to  be  made  like  unto  His 
brethren,  that  He  might  be  a  merciful  and  faithful  High  Priest 
in  things  pertaining  to  God,  to  make  reconciliation  for  the  sins 
of  the  people.  For  in  that  He  Himself  hath  suffered  being 
tempted,  He  is  able  to  succour  them  that  are  tempted."  To 
succour  us  when  we  are  tempted  is  manifestly  to  do  for  us  that 
very  service  which  I  have  just  represented  the  Apostle  John  as 
leading  those  to  whom  he  writes  "that  they  sin  not,"  to  expect 
from  that  righteous  Advocate  with  the  Father,  who  is  the  pro- 
pitiation for  our  sins.  For  this  service  of  love,  Christ  is  here 
represented  as  fitted,  in  that  He  Himself  hath  suffered,  being 
tempted — as  tliertTby  being  righteous.  Both  thoughts  are  com- 
bined when  it  is  said,  that,  "  He  was  tempted  in  all  points 
like  as  we  are,  yet  without  sin."  Now,  going  back  from  the 
1 8th  verse  to  the  17th  (the  18th  "  For,"  &c.  being  given  as  the 
justification  of  the  comfort  offered  in  the  17th),  it  is  clear,  that 
"making  reconciliation  for  the  sins  of  the  people,"  is  the  same 
thing  with  "  succouring  us  when  we  are  tempted," — in  other 
words,  is  a  dealing  with  our  spirits  as  worshipping  God — calling 
Him  Father,  in  a  way  of  merciful  and  faithful  aid,  such 
as  the  High  Priest,  who  is  related  to  us,  according  to  the 
power  of  an  endless  life — the  Son  of  God,  in  whom  we 
have  eternal  life, — has  been  qualified  for  ministering  to  us 
through  having  "been  made  in  all  things  like  unto  His 
brethren." 

I  know  that  this  view  of  making  reconciliation  for  our  sins 
as  being  the  ministering  to  us  a  present  help,  according  to 
our  spiritual  need, — enabling  us  to  be  at  peace  with  God 
spiritually,  and  therefore,  truly, — enabling  us  to  worship  God, 
who  is  a  spirit,  in  spirit  and  in  truth— is  not  that  usually  taken. 
And  that  thus  to  interpret  Christ's  making  reconciliation  by 
the  reference  made  to  His  experience  of  our  conditions  as  what 
has  qualified  Him  for  this  office  of  an  High  Priest  is  as  great 
a    departure    from    prevailing    associations    with    the   sacred 


AND  NECESSARY  CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION.     173 

language,  as  there  is  in  the  view  just  taken  of  what  is  taught 
when  Christ  is  said  to  be  the  propitiation  for  our  sins.  Yet 
there  is  no  case  in  which  there  is,  to  my  mind,  a  more 
painful  illustration  of  the  power  of  system,  than  in  the  way_in 
which  the  18th  verse  has^jl§H5nohave  been  lost  sight 
of  in  fixing  the  meaning  of  the  17th,  and  in  which,  indeed, 
I  may  say  the  tone  of  the  17  th  itself  as  a  whole  has  been  mis- 
understood. 

If  the  interpretation  of  the  expressions,  "  propitiation " 
and  "  reconciliation,"  now  adopted  in  harmony  with  the  view 
taken  of  the  nature  of  the  atonement,  commends  itself 
to  the  reader,  he  will  be  prepared  to  receive  a  correspond- 
ing interpretation  of  the  expression  "  peace,"  as  applied 
to  Christ,  when  He  is  said,  to  be  "our  peace," — making  it 
equivalent  to  His  claim  to  being  the  only  "  way  to  the  Father." 
Eph.  ii.  14. 

In  the  teaching  by  which  the  Saviour  comforted  the  disciples 
in  the  near  prospect  of  His  being  taken  from  them,  we  find 
Him,  in  words  referred  to  already,  encouraging  them  by  the 
prospect  of  passing  through  the  trials  that  awaited  them  in  the 
fellowship  of  the  inward  consolation  by  which  they  had  seen 
their  Lord  Himself  sustained  in  all  they  had  seen  Him  pass 
through.  "  Peace,"  says  He,  "  I  leave  with  you,  my  peace  I 
give  unto  you."  That  He  could  speak  to  them  of  His  own 
peace  has  "Been  already  noticed  as  a  part  of  the  perfection  of 
His  witnessing  for  the  Father.  That  he  could  promise  to  them 
the  fellowship  of  that  peace  which  He  thus  claims  as  His  own 
has  been  also  already  noticed  as  one  of  the  forms  in  which  He 
made  them  to  know  that  the  life  of  sonship  which  they  wit- 
nessed in  Him  was  in  Him  the  Father's  gift  to  them.  If  they 
were  to  be  sons  of  God  in  Spirit  and  in  truth,  the  peace  of  the 
Son  in  following  the  Father  as  a  dear  child  would  He'fffeir 
portion  also.  Further,  as  they  were  to  live  the  life  of  sonship, 
not  as  independent  beings,  following  the  example  of  the  Son  of 
God,  but  as  abiding  in  the  Son  of  God,  as  branches Jn  the  true 
vine,  this  peace  which  lie  bequeathed  to  them  they  were  not 


174      FURTHER  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FIXED 

to  have  apart  from  Himself.  In  abiding  in  Him  were  they  to 
have  it  as  a  part  of  theTulness  that  was  in  Him  for  them — a 
part  of  the  all  things  pertaining  to  life  and  to  godliness.  "  In 
me  ye  shall  have  peace."  Thus  are  we  to  understand  the  word 
"  peace  "  in  the  promises  of  the  Lord  to  the  disciples  before 
His  departure  ;  thus  are  we  to  understand  it  when,  on  those 
occasions  on  which  He  appeared  to  them  between  His  resur- 
rection and  ascension,  still  further  to  comfort  their  hearts  and 
to  strengthen  them  for  what  was  before  them,  He  stood  in  the 
midst  of  them  and  said,  "  Peace  be  unto  you  ;  as  the  Father 
hath  sent  me,  even  so  send  I  you."  Doubtless,  thus  also  are 
we  to  understand  the  "peace  "  intended  in  the  apostolic  prayer 
and  benediction,  "  Grace  be  unto  you,  and  peace  from  God 
the  Father,  and  from  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  Nor  has  the 
word  any  other  meaning  than  this  in  the  song  of  the  heavenly 
host  at  the  nativity,  "  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest ;  on  earth 
peace,  and  goodwill  toward  men."  Now  the  reader  is  prepared  to 
understand  that  in  accordance  with  the  nature  of  the  atone- 
ment as  now  represented,  it  is  the  same  peace,  the  peace  of  son- 
ship,  the  peace  that  is  from  "  God  the  Father  and  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ ;  "  being  peace  "  in  fellowship  with  the  Father  and 
with  His  Son  Jesus  Christ," — it  is  this  same  peace  that  I  under- 
stand to  be  the  peace  spoken  of  when  it  is  said  that  Christ  "  is 
our  peace." 

The  parallelism  of  the  2nd  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Ephesians,  with  the  portion  of  the  10th  chapter  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  "Hebrews,  considered  above,  is  obvious.  The  language 
of  the  temple  service  is  not  so  closely  adhered  to,  nor  is  salva- 
tion so  exclusively  contemplated  as  the  condition  of  true  and 
accepted  worship  •  for  with  the  idea  of  a  "  holy  temple,"  is 
united  that  of  "citizenship,"  and  a  "  household,"  verses  19,  20, 
21,  22 ;  but  the  summing  up  of  the  evil  of  the  state  in  which  the 
gospel  had  found  the  Ephesians,  in  the  words  "  without  God  in 
the  world,"  verse  12, — the  setting  forth,  as  the  grace  revealed 
to  them,  their  being  "  made  nigh  by  the  blood  of  Christ," — the 
purpose  ascribed  to  Christ,  to  reconcile  us  to  God  by  slaying 


AND  NECESSARY  CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION.     175 

the  enmity; — all  express  the  same  conception  of  the  evil  of 
man's  state  as  a  sinner  as  consisting  in  his  spiritual  distance 
from  God,  and  of  the  salvation  revealed  in  the  gospel  as 
consisting  in  spiritual  nearness  to  God.  In  this  connection  the 
peace  which  Christ  is  said  to  be,  and  which  is  said  to  be 
preached  to  men,  can  only  be  understood  to  be  a  spiritual 
peace  with  God — a  spiritual  destruction  of  the  previous  enmity, 
— a  spiritual  reality  present  in  the  humanity  of  Christ,  and  pro- 
claimed to  men  as  the  gift  of  God  to  them  in  Christ, — one  with 
the  way  into  the  holiest,  which  He  has  opened  up  for  us, — the 
way  to  the  Father,  which  He  is  to  us.  And  this  spiritual  con- 
ception of  the  peace  spoken  of,  suggested  by  the  tone  of  the 
whole  passage  as  what  alone  accords  with  the  spiritual  realities 
of  distance  from  God  and  nearness  to  God,  is  sealed  to  us  as 
the  true  conception  by  the  explanatory  words  of  the  18th  verse. 
"  For  through  Him  we  both  have  access  by  one  spirit  unto  the 
Father."  "  For,"  that  is  to  say,  because  of  this  condition  of 
things,  viz.,  our  having,  both  Jew  and  Gentile,  through  Christ, 
access  by  one  spirit  unto  the  Father, — therefore,  is  peace 
preached  to  us,  tor  in  this  is  peace  for  us. 

Looking  more  closely  into  the  passage,  there  is  a  complication 
foreign  to  our  present  purpose  introduced  by  the  mention  of  Jew 
and  Gentile.  This  has  arisen  from  its  being  an  Epistle  to 
Gentiles.  But  we  see  that  the  Apostle  is  taking  us  deeper  than 
the  distinction  between  Jew  and  Gentile.  He  is  taking  us 
down  to  our  common  humanity,  and  presenting  to  our  faith  the 
Son  of  God  by  one  work  doing  away  with  the  separation 
between  Jew  and  Gentile,  and  reconciling  both  Jew  and 
Gentile — all  humanity — unto  God  in  one  body  by  the  cross, 
having  slain  the  enmity  thereby.  Paul  says  to  the  Galatians, 
"  We  who  are  Jews  by  nature,  and  not  sinners  of  the  Gentiles, 
knowing  that  a  man  is  not  justified  by  the  works  of  the  law 
but  by  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ,  even  we  have  believed  in 
Jesus  Christ,  that  we  might  be  justified  by  the  faith  of  Christ, 
and  not  by  the  works  of  the  law ;  for  by  the  works  of  the  law 
shall  no  flesh  be  justified."     So  here  he  takes  the  Ephesians 


iy6      FURTHER  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FIXED 

to  the  contemplation  of  that  dealing  of  the  Son  with  the  Father 
on  behalf  of  all  humanity,  in  which  Jew  and  Gentile  were  alike 
interested,  and  in  which  they  must  alike  see  their  interest  if 
they  would  see  the  veil  rent  that  separated  them  from  each 
other,  and  separated  them  from  God ;  for,  indeed,  the  veil  is 
one  and  the  same  that  separates  man  from  God,  and  that 
separates  man  from  man. 

I  will  not  anticipate  that  tracing  of  the  atonement  in  con- 
nexion with  the  actual  history  of  our  Lord's  work  to  its  close  on 
the  cross  which  I  contemplate,  and  by  which  I  hope  the  view  I 
am  presenting  of  the  nature  of  the  atonement  will  be  felt  to  be 
illustrated  and  confirmed.  In  no  view  of  the  atonement  can 
the  crucifixion  be  separated  from  the  previous  life  of  which  jt 
was  the  close.  Yet,  it  is  only  the  view  now  taken  that 
identifies  the  peace  to  which  our  Lord  was  conscious  throughout 
His  own  life  on  earth,  and  which  He  promised  to  His  disciples, 
with  the  peace  which  He  fully  accomplished  and  vindicated  for 
humanity  in  that  death  on  the  cross,  which  was  the  perfecting 
of  the  Lord's  work  of  redemption,  the  perfected  fulfilling  of  the 
purpose,  "  Lo,  I  come  to  do  thy  will,  O  God,"  the  perfecting  of 
His  declaration  of  the  Father's  name.  But  the  gospel  does  not 
proclaim  two  manners  of  peace  with  God :  one  legal,  the  result 
of  Christ's  bearing  the  penalty  of  our  sins ;  the  other  spiritual, 
to  be  known  in  our  participation  in  Christ's  spirit.  That 
oneness  of  mind  with  the  Father  in  the  aspect  of  the  divine 
mind  towards  man,  which  was  fully  developed  and  perfected  in 
humanity  in  the  Son  of  God  when  His  confession  of  the  Father 
before  men,  and  His  dealing  with  the  Father  on  behalf  of  men, 
were  perfected  on  the  cross, — this  was  that  divine  and  spiritual 
peace  for  man  in  His  relation  to  God,  which  is  to  be 
contemplated,  first,  as  in  its  own  nature  and  essence  spiritual ; 
and  then,  because  spiritual,  also  legal, — a  perfect  answer  to  all 
the  demands  of  the  law  of  God, — a  perfect  justification  of  God 
in  regard  to  the  grace  in  which  we  stand. 

And  thus  was  the  atonement  adequate  to  whatever  victory  of 
Christ   on   our   behalf  is    implied   in    His  "  leading   captivity 


AND  NECESSARY  CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION.     177 

captive,"  when  "  through  death  destroying  him  that  had  the 

power  of  death,  that  is,  the  devil ;  and  delivering  them  who 

through    fear   of    death    were    all   their    lifetime    subject   to 

bondage."  Hebrews  ii.  14,  15.    The  power  of  evil  adverse  to 

us  to  which  this  language  refers  we  imperfectly  understand. 

Definite  conceptions  of  the  manner  of  our  bondage  we  have 

not  beyond  this,  that  "the  strength  of  sin  was  the  law."     But, 

if  the  honour  regarded  as  done  to  the  law  by  the  death  of 

Christ  conceived  of  as  implying  the  enduring  of  penal  infliction 

for  our  sins,  have  seemed  a  sufficient  explanation  of  the  power 

thus  ascribed  to  Christ's  cross,  how  infinitely  more  adequate  to 

the  results  accomplished,  because  infinitely  more  honouring  to 

the  law  of  God,  and  a  real  living  dealing  with  that  in  the  heart 

of  the  Father  of  spirits  to  which  the  law  refers,  is  the  moral 

and  spiritual  atonement  of  which  the  cross  was  the  perfecting  ! 

Christ  said  to  Pilate,  "  Thou  couldest  have  no  power  at  all 

against  me,  except  it  were  given  thee  from  above ; "  and  this  we 

know  of  all  subordinate  power,  wherever  present,  for  "  power 

belongeth  to  God  alone."     Therefore  has  the  power  ascribed 

to  the  accuser  of  the  brethren — our  adversary  the  devil — been 

always,  and  rightly  regarded,  as  what  could  only  rest  upon  the 

fixedness  of  that  moral  constitution  of  things  of  which  the  law  is 

the  formal  expression,   and  our  rebellion  against  which  had 

given  him  advantage  over  us.     But  the  root  of  that  constitution 

of  things  is  the  fatherliness  of  the  Father  of  our  spirits  :  nothing, 

therefore,  could  truly  honour  that  constitution  which  did  not  do 

due  honour  to  that  fatherliness  in  which  it  has  its  root ;  while  that 

fatherliness  being  duly  honoured,  the  law  must  of  necessity 

have  been  therein  honoured,  and  with  the  highest  honour. 

While,  therefore,  that  formal  literal  meeting  of  the  demands 
of  the  law  which  men  have  seen  in  Christ  has  been  to  them  the 
spoiling  of  the  power  of  the  devil,  because  it  was  a  meeting  of 
the  law  seen  simply  as  the  law :  in  the  light  in  which  we  are 
now  contemplating  the  work  of  redemption,  it  is  the  Son's 
dealing  in  humanity  directly  with  the  fatherliness  that  is  in  God 
— and  so  dealing  with  the  violation  of  the  law  in  relation  to 


i;8      FURTHER  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FIXED 

the  ultimate  desire  of  the  heart  of  the  Father,  who  gave  the 
law — by  which  we  see  ourselves,  who  were  under  the  law, 
redeemed,  that  we  might  receive  the  adoption  of  sons;  this 
true  doing  of  the  Father's  will  by  the  Son,  and  not  a  mere 
literal  fulfilling  of  the  law,  being  the  spiritual  might  by  which 
our  captivity  is  seen  to  be  led  captive. 

This  deliverance  wrought  out  for  all  humanity, — the  peace 
accomplished  on  the  cross, — is,  in  respect  of  its  being  first 
spiritual,  and  then,  as  a  consequence,  legal,  in  striking  accordance 
with  the  order  that  is  observed  in  our  individual  participation 
in  it.  "  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  He  that  heareth  my 
word,  and  believeth  on  Him  that  sent  me,  hath  everlasting  life, 
and  shall  not  come  into  condemnation,  but  is  passed  from 
death  unto  life."    John  v.  24. 

But  to  this  order  men  do  not  easily  conform.  There  is  a 
state  of  mind  in  which  it  will  be  asked,  "  If  the  relation  of  the 
atonement  to  our  participation  in  the  life  of  Christ  be  thus 
direct  and  immediate, — if  it  be  such  as  necessitates  our  giving 
a  moral,  a  spiritual  meaning  as  distinguished  from  a  mere  legal 
meaning,  to  the  expressions,  '•  peace  with  God '  '  reconciliation 
with  God,'  '  propitiation  for  sin,' — if  the  immediate  and  only 
natural  reflection  in  seeing  the  pardon  of  our  sins  as  the  gospel 
reveals  it,  be,  that  we  are  free  to  draw  near  to  God,  to  join  in 
the  services  of  the  true  sanctuary,  and  in  the  spirit  of  sonship  to 
have  communion  with  our  heavenly  Father, — if  Christ's  suffer- 
ing for  us,  the  just  for  the  unjust,  thus  simply  suggest  the 
purpose  of  bringing  us  to  God, — then  is  the  gospel  to  us.  sinners 
the  good  news  which  it  claims  to  be  ?  The  wrath  of  God  has 
been  revealed  against  all  unrighteousness  of  men ;  we  are 
sinners  under  condemnation, — our  first  need  is  pardon,  as  a 
discharge  from  the  sentence  upon  us.  Granting  that  our  true 
well-being  is  to  be  ultimately  found  in  peace  and  reconciliation 
in  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  words,  have  we  not  a  first  need  of 
peace  and  reconciliation  in  a  legal  sense  ?  Our  fears  of  wrath 
may  not  be  holy  feelings,  or  what  pertain  to  the  divine  life  in 
man ;  but  are  they  not  natural,  allowable,  nay,  right  feelings  in 


AND  NECESSARY  CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION.     179 

us  sinners  ?     And  if  they  are,  are  they  not  to  be  taken  account 
of  and  must  not  this  be  done  in  the  first  place  ?" 

I  have  said  above  that  what  of  severity  is  in  the  moral 
governor  of  the  universe  has  its  root  in  the  heart  of  the  Father 
of  spirits.  We  cannot  therefore  believe  in  an  atonement  that 
satisfies  the  heart  of  the  Father — we  cannot  believe  in  blood 
shed  for  the  remission  of  our  sins,  which  has  power  to  purge 
our  spirits  for  that  worship  which  is  sonship, — and  yet  be  un- 
certain whether  partaking  in  the  fruit  of  such  an  atonement, 
and  joining  in  this  worship,  we  are  still  exposed  to  the 
righteous  wrath  of  God.  If  an  atonement  be  adequate  morally 
and  spiritually,  it  will  of  necessity  be  legally  adequate.  If  it  be 
sufficient  in  relation  to  our  receiving  the  adoption  of  sons,  it 
must  be  sufficient  for  our  redemption  as  under  the  law.  To 
think  otherwise  would  be  to  subordinate  the  gospel  to  the  law, 
and  the  love  of  the  Father  of  spirits  to  His  offspring  to  that 
moral  government  which  has  its  origin  in  that  love.  We  are 
not  under  the  law,  but  under  grace.  Let  us  receive  this 
gracious  constitution  of  things  in  the  light  of  the  love  that  has 
ordained  it.  Let  us  understand  that  He  was  made  sin  for  us 
who  knew  no  sin,  that  we  might  be  made  the  righteousness  of 
God  in  Him.  Let  us  conform  to  this  purpose  of  God, — let  us 
receive  the  righteousness  of  God  in  Christ,  and  be  the  righteous- 
ness of  God  in  Him,  let  us  be  reconciled  to  God  and  we  shall 
find  all  questions  as  to  our  exposure  to  the  wrath  of  God  to 
have  been  fully  taken  into  account  in  that  divine  counsel  which 
we  have  welcomed,  for  we  shall  understand  the  experience  of 
the  Apostle, — "  Herein  is  our  love  made  perfect,  that  we  may 
have  boldness  in  the  day  of  judgment ;  because  as  He  is,  so 
are  we  in  this  world."  Surely  Philip  was  right  when  he  said, 
" Shew  us  the  Father,  and  it  sufficeth  us"  Surely  we  do  not 
know  to  what  we  are  listening  when  we  are  listening  to  the 
testimony  of  God  concerning  His  Son,  viz.,  that  "  God  has 
given  to  us  eternal  life,  and  that  this  life  is  in  His  Son,"  if  we 
can  answer,  "  But  if  we  receive  this  life  to  be  our  life,  will  that 
be  enough  for  us ;  shall  we  not  need  something  besides  to  save 


180      FURTHER  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FIXED 

us  from  the  wrath  to  come  ?  "  Oh,  my  brother,  "  there  is  no 
fear  in  love ;  but  perfect  love  casteth  out  fear."  If  you  are 
"  reconciled  to  God  by  the  death  of  His  Son,"  how  shall  you 
not  be  "  saved  from  wrath  through  Him  ?  "  It  is,  indeed,  un- 
believable— no  man  can  believe — that  receiving  Christ  as  our 
life,  we  can  feel  that  His  blood  does  indeed  cleanse  from  all 
sin,  in  relation  to  that  worship  of  God  which  is  in  spirit  and  in 
truth  j  but  that  we  cannot  feel  secure  as  engaged  in  this  worship 
unless  that  blood  of  Christ,  under  the  power  of  which  our 
spirits  have  come  by  faith,  speak  to  our  consciences  of  penal 
sufferings  endured  for  us  and  so  assure  us  that  the  law  has 
no  claim  against  us. 

But  the  difficulty  felt  is  not  that  of  persons  seeing  the  subject 
from  this  point  of  view.  One  once  said  to  me,  wThen  urging  on 
him  the  evidence  for  the  universality  of  the  atonement,  in  oppo- 
sition to  his  own  faith  of  an  atonement  for  an  election  only, — 
"  Were  I  to  believe  that  Christ  died  for  all,  it  would  destroy 
the  peace  which  I  have  in  the  faith  of  the  atonement,  for  this  is 
my  peace, — He  suffered,  therefore  I  shall  not  suffer."  This 
was  the  same  idea  which  we  have  seen  urged  on  Arminians,  by 
Dr.  Owen,  in  that  dilemma  which  appears  unanswerable,  on  the 
assumption  that  the  atonement  was  the  enduring  of  penal 
suffering  by  Christ  as  our  substitute.  Yet,  however  inconsis- 
tently, and  though  not  in  the  strong  form, — "  He  suffered, 
therefore  I  shall  not  suffer," — many  feel  as  if  they  were  less 
obnoxious  to  suffering,  because  of  the  penal  suffering  which 
they  assume  to  have  been  endured  by  Christ,  even  when  their 
faith  in  the  universality  of  the_atonement  necessarily  qualifies 
their  comfort  from  this  source.  I  dcTnot  now  recur  to  the 
inconsistency  which  Dr.  Owen  has  so  well  exposed,  but  will 
deal  directly  with  the  state  of  mind  which  desires,  if  it  does  not 
quite  venture  to  cherish,  the  peace  of  saying,  "  He  suffered, 
therefore  I  shall  not  suffer." 

This  state  of  mind  only  exists  through  not  seeing  our  relation 
to  God  as  a  moral  governor,  in  its  true  subordination  to  our 
relation  to  Him  as  the  Father  of  our  spirits.     I  have  asked, 


AND  NECESSARY  CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION.     181 

"  Can  the  moral  governor  remain  unsatisfied  if  the  Father  of 
spirits  is  satisfied  ? "  The  converse  of  this  question  is,  "  Can 
the  moral  governor  be  satisfied  while  the  Father  of  spirits  is 
not?"  To  suppose  that  peace  can  ever  be  justifiable  on  the 
ground,  "  He  suffered,  therefore  I  shall  not  suffer,"  is  to  answer 
this  question  in  the  affirmative, — it  is  to  suppose  that  when 
Christ  suffered,  the  just  for  the  unjust,  the  direct  end  was  that 
the  unjust  should  not  suffer.  Now  we  cannot  doubt  the  pain 
which  the  exposure  of  the  unjust  to  suffering  was  to  God,  or 
the  desire  of  His  heart  to  save  them  from  suffering;  but_we 
must  not  forget  that  the  original  reason  for  connecting  sin  and 
misery  still  continued,  that  that  connexion  was  not  arbitrary, 
that  the  wrath  of  God  revealed  against  all  unrighteousness  of 
men  was  not  a  feeling  that  has  passed,  or  could  pass  away  :  no 
revelation  of  the  unchanging  God  could.  Therefore  when  the 
just  suffered  for  the  unjust,  it  was  with  the  direct  purpose  of 
bringing  the  unjust  to  God, — that  is  bringing  the  unjust  to  the 
obedience  of  the  just,  leaving  the  connexion  betweefi  suffering  and 
injustice,  or  sin,  imdissolved,  the  righteousness  of  that  connexion 
being  unchanged. 

Here  we  are  met  by  another  necessity,  corresponding  to  that 
already  dwelt  on  as  declared  in  the  words,  "  No  man  cometh 
unto  the  Father  but  by  me."  But  how  could  it  be  otherwise? 
If  departure  from  the  Father  be  the  ultimate  root  evil,  which  it 
was  righteousness — the  righteousness  of  love — to  visit  with 
wrath,  how  should  deliverance  from  wrath  be  experienced 
otherwise  than  in  returning  to  the  Father,  or  mercy  to  those 
who  had  departed  take  any  other  form  than  opening  for  them 
the  way  of  return  ? 

I  have  said  that  the  atonement  reconciles  us  to  the  spiritual 
necessities,  the  laws  of  the  kingdom  of  God  which  it  reveals. 
We  should  in  our  darkness  be  willing  to  lose  the  Father  in  the 
moral  governor  if  we  could  think  of  the  moral  governor  in  a 
way  that  would  permit  to  us  the  feeling  of  security  under  His 
government ;  and  all  the  demand  that  we  should  make  on  the 
fatherliness  of  the  Father  of  our  spirits  would  be  for  such  mercy 

p 


182      FURTHER  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FIXED 

as  would  qualify  His  moral  government  and  modify  it  in  accom- 
modation to  what  we  feel  ourselves  to  be.  But  in  the  light  of 
the  atonement  which  reveals  the  Father  to  us  in  the  Son  we 
bless  God  that  not  our  wishes  in  our  darkness,  but  God's  own 
fatherliness  and  our  capacity  of  sonship  have  determined  the 
nature  of  the  grace  extended  to  us.  Nor  would  we  now  desire 
to  see  one  terror  that  is  connected  with  sin  separated  from  it, 
or  one  token  of  the  divine  displeasure  against  it  withdrawn.  For 
Christ's  sufferings  have  revealed  to  us  the  nature,  and  the  depth, 
and  the  righteousness  of  God's  wrath  against  sin, — what  _our 
sins  are  to  His  heart,  and  what  that  mind  in  relation  to  sin  is 
to  which  it  is  His  sole  desire  in  the  matter  to  bring  us,  and 
which  mind  is  His  gift  to  us  in  Christ,  in  whom  it  is  revealed. 
Therefore,  the  pardon  of  sin  in  any  other  sense  than  the 
revealing,  and  the  opening  to  us  of  the  path  of  life,  is  now  to 
us  as  undesirable  as,  in  relation  to  the  moral  government  of  the 
Father  of  spirits,  it  is  inconceivable. 

To  some  whose  serious  thoughts  are  occupied  with  the 
punishment  of  sin  as  an  object  of  terror,  rather  than  with  the 
sin  itself  on  which  it  is  God's  mark,  this  tone  may  seem  high, 
and,  it  may  be,  even  presumptuous,  and  in  relation  to  them- 
selves, unfeeling;  more  like  the  self- congratulation  of  the 
pharisee,  than  the  humility  of  the  publican,  and  sounding  like 
self-righteousness,  however  it  may  be  but  that  "  giving  of  thanks 
at  the  remembrance  of  God's  holiness  "  of  which  the  psalmist 
speaks.  Others,  again,  entirely  occupied  with  their  own  newly- 
discovered  and  dimly  apprehended  exposure  to  divine  wrath, 
will  not  venture  to  judge  those  on  whom  they  look  as  more  in 
the  light  of  God  than  themselves,  or  to  doubt  that  their  professed 
sympathy  in  the  mind  of  God  towards  sin,  may  be  genuine,  and 
consistent  with  humility,  but  they  are  still  disposed  to  say, 
"  Shew  us  something  more  suited  to  our  present  position,  some 
ground  of  safety  to  rest  upon — to  trust  to  at  once ;  and  then 
teach  us  to  worship,  and  direct  us  to  the  provision  for  doing  so 
in  spirit  and  in  truth  ■  for  doubtless  such  worship  belongs  to 
Christianity." 


AND  NECESSARY  CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION.     183 

As  to  the  first  of  these  states  of  mind,  the  misconstruction  of 
confounding  the  righteousness  of  faith  with  self-righteousness  is 
not  strange  to  those  who  are  the  subjects  of  it;  nor,  as  to  the 
second,  is  the  temptation  to  seek  a  ground  of  peace  in  relation 
to  God's  law, — thinking  only  of  the  lawgiver,  and  not  thinking 
of  the  Father  of  spirits,  what  any  one  can  have  difficulty  in 
understanding,  who  knows  how  much  religious  earnestness  exists 
which  has  no  deeper  root  than  the  sense  of  our  dependence  on 
God  as  our  sovereign  Lord,  the  judge  of  all  the  earth.  But 
whether  judging  the  spirits  of  those  who  preach  the  true  gospel 
of  peace  to  them,  or  withholding  from  judging,  the  feeling  of 
awakened  sinners  "  that  the  ground  taken  is  too  high  for  them," 
is  altogether  a  misconception  on  their  part.  We_  beseech  men 
by  the  meekness  and  gentleness  of  Christ ;  we  are  ambassadors 
for  Him  who  would  not  break  the  bruised  reed  nor  quench  the 
smoking  flax :  but  our  word,  the  word  which  He  has  put  into 
our  mouth  is,  "  Be  ye  reconciled  to  God."  Is  this  a  hard  say- 
ing, too  high  a  demand  to  make  on  the  awakened,  self-con- 
demned spirit  ?  It  is  not  made  except  in  connexion  with  that 
which  God  has  done  to  make  such  a  demand  reasonable — yea 
hopeful,  as  addressed  to  the  chief  of  sinners,  viz.  the  peace  for 
man  in  his  relation  to  God  which  is  in  the  blood  of  Christ :  but 
in  connexion  with  this  prepared  and  revealed  peace  it  is  made, 
and  we  may  not  change  or  modify  this  demand,  or  in  any  way 
accommodate  ourselves  to  a  state  of  mind  in  which  alienation 
from  God  is  not  felt  to  be  the  great,  the  all-embracing  evil  of 
our  state  as  sinners,  and  reconciliation  to  God  the  very  first 
dawn  of  light,  and  breathing  of  the  breath  of  a  new  life. 

So  that  however  awful  our  sense  of  all  secondary  evils  that 
come  in  the  train  of  men's  alienation,  or  high  our  conception  of 
the  secondary  good  that  will  follow  on  their  being  reconciled  to 
God,  we  must  forbid  all  direct  dealing  with  wrath  and  judgment 
as  if  these  might  be  first  disposed  of,  and  then  attention  be 
turned  to  other  considerations.  We  have  here  to  do  with  per- 
sons,— the  Father  of  spirits  and  His  offspring.  These  are  to  each 
other  more  than  all  things  and  all  circumstances.     We  know  that 


1 84      FURTHER  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FIXED 

the  desire  of  the  Father's  heart  is  toward  His  offspring.. — that 
it  goes  forth  to  them  directly, — that  it  is  not  a  simple  mercy 
pitying  their  misery, — that  it  seeks  to  possess  them  as  dear 
children.  We  know  that  to  be  restored  to  Him,  and  to  possess 
Him  as  their  Father,  is  to  these  alienated  children  themselves 
not  merely  a  great  thing,  but  every  thing.  He,  the  Father,  has 
done  all  towards  their  reconciliation  in  perfect  fatherliness,  and 
all  the  provisions  of  His  love  have  been  dictated,  and  have  had 
their  character  determined  by  His  fatherliness.  They  therefore 
must  hear  nothing,  be  occupied  with  nothing,  but  what  pertains 
to  their  character  as  His  offspring.  They  must  see  His  grace 
as  that  outcoming  of  fatherliness,  which  it  is, — they  must  see  its 
provisions  for  them  as  what  belong  to  the  adoption  of  sons 
which  He  contemplates  for  them.  And  so  they  must  hear  the 
call  addressed  to  them  in  the  words,  u  Be  ye  reconciled  to  God," 
as  not  only  a  reasonable  call  in  respect  of  the  grace  manifested, 
but  as,  indeed,  the  gracious  invitation  to  the  benefit  of  that 
grace, — as  equivalent  to,  "  Be  saved,  receive  salvation."  As 
to  wrath — terror — these  they  have  not  directly  to  do  with  ;  they 
are  to  think  of  them  as  connected  with  the  region  of  distance 
from  God,  of  alienation  from  God,  back  from  which  they  are 
called :  they  will  cease  as  to  them  in  their  being  reconciled  to 
God.  They  belong  to  that  which  is  without :  but  the  invitation 
to  be  reconciled  to  God  is  the  invitation  to  return  and  enter 
into  their  Father's  house,  into  their  Father's  heart.  This_is 
what  is  put  before  them,  freely,  unconditionally.  Does  the 
word  "  unconditionally  "  cause  difficultyT^Ts  it  said — "Is  not 
to  be  reconciled  to  comply  with  a  condition?"  Yes,  such  a 
condition  as  drinking  of  the  water  of  life  is  in  relation  to  living. 
Not  in  any  other  sense  a  condition, —  not  assuredly  as  giving 
the  right  to  drink,  for  that  is  the  grace  revealed,  the  grace  wherein 
we  stand.  But  as  to  wrath  and  safety  from  wrath,  if  questions 
arise  it  is  a  proof  that  what  is  presented  is  not  understood. 
"  He  that  believeth  shall  ??ot  come  into  condemnation,  but  hath 
passed  from  death  unto  life. " 

The  peace-speaking  power  of  the  blood  of  Christ  is  to  be 


AND  NECESSARY  CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION.     185 

conceived  of  as  a  direct  power  on  the  spirit  in  its  personal 
relation  to  the  Father  of  spirits,  revealing  at  once  the  heart  of 
the  Father,  and  the  way  into  the  heart  of  the  Father,  even  the 
Son.  The  blood  that  reveals  this  imparts  peace,  makes  perfect 
as  pertains  to  the  conscience, — yea,  purges  it  from  dead  works 
to  serve  the  living  God.  Indeed,  that  the  relation  of  that  blood 
to  God's  law,  and  the  honour  it  rendered  to  that  law,  have  had, 
as  we  have  seen,  a  direct  reference  to  our  receiving  the  adoption 
of  sons  implies  that  it  has  not  come  directly  between  man  and 
judgment,  or  taken  him,  by  the  fact  of  its  being  shed,  from 
beneath  the  righteous  rule  of  God  :  and,  therefore,  that  it 
ministers  no  peace,  being  rejected — but,  on  the  contrary,  only  a 
fearful  looking  for  of  judgment,  so  assuredly  giving  no  place 
for  the  direct  confidence,  "  He  suffered,  therefore  I  shall  not 
suffer." 

But,  apart  from  the  fact  that  the  shedding  of  the  blood  of 
Christ  had  its  direct  reference  to  the  perfecting  of  the  conscience, 
and  the  reconciling  us  to  God  truly  and  spiritually  as  the  Father 
of  our  spirits,  is  not  the  idea  of  a  direct  immunity  from  judg- 
ment, the  idea  of  a  ground  of  peace  in  the  thought  of  judgment 
which  may  be  contemplated  by  us  as  ours,  so  to  speak,  ante- 
cedent to  our  being  reconciled, — a  legal  reconciliation  to  be 
rested  on  antecedent  to  a  spiritual  reconciliation, — inconsistent 
with  giving  our  alienation  from  God  its  true  place  as  the  great 
evil  and  what  must  be  directly  dealt  with  ? — And  is  there  not, 
however  terrible  the  thought,  yet  is  there  not  in  the  very  sense 
of  gratitude  for  the  mercy  which  is  believed  to  be  in  such  a 
direct  deliverance  from  wrath  to  come,  a  source  of  delusion  as 
to  our  true  interest,  our  true  well-being?  Does  it  not  tend  to 
confirm  us  in  the  tendency  to  lose  the  Father  of  our  spirits  in 
the  moral  governor,  and  so  to  misunderstand,  as  in  that  case 
we  must  do,  the  ends  of  His  moral  government  ?  Does  it  not 
tend  to  smother  in  us  the  cry  of  the  orphan  spirit  for  its  long 
lost  Father  ?  Does  it  not  take  from  God  the  attribute  that  life 
lies  in  His  favour, — making  Him  important  to  us  because  of 
what  He  has  to  bestow,  and  not  because  of  what  He  feels 


1 86      FURTHER  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FIXED 

towards  us  viewed  in  itself,  and  as  the  feeling  of  the  Father  to 
His  offspring. 

Nor  is  there  any  room  for  feeling  as  if  some  lower  ground 
should  be  taken  at  first,  and  in  tenderness  to  newly  awakened 
sinners.  We  cannot  too  soon  present  the  Father  to  them.  We 
cannot  too  soon  lay  their  weakness  on  the  everlasting  arms  of 
the  Eternal  Love.  To  furnish  them,  in  accommodation  to 
their  darkness,  with  any  ground  of  confidence  towards  God 
otherjhan  what  the  Son  has  revealed  as  the  heart  of  the  Father, 
would  be  to  seal  them  in  that  darkness,  and  to  counteract  the 
end  of  that  revelation.  No  doubt  the  words,  "  No  man  cometh 
unto  the  Father  but  by  me,"  which  reveal  that  fixed  constitution 
of  things  to  which  our  vague  hope  of  salvation  must  conform, 
or  cease,  were  spoken  to  the  chosen  companions  of  our  Lord's 
path,  and  towards  the  close  of  His  personal  ministry,  but  they 
express  the  manner  of  Gospel  which  had  breathed  from  His  life 
all  along.  And  so  those  gracious  words  to  all  the  weary  and 
heavy  laden — "  Come  unto  me,  and  I  will  give  you  rest,"  are 
both  spoken  in  immediate  reference  to  what  He  had  just 
declared,  "  No  man  knoweth  the  Father  save  the  Son,  and  he 
to  whomsoever  the  Son  shall  reveal  Him," — clearly  teaching 
that  the  promised  rest  would  be  found  in  knowledge  of  the 
Father ;  and,  more,  are  followed  by  the  clear  intimation  that  in 
their  participation  of  Himself  as  their  life,  participating  in  what 
He  was,  was  the  Son  to  be  to  men  the  channel  of  this  rest- 
giving  knowledge  of  the  Father — "  Take  my  yoke  upon  you, 
and  learn  of  me  ;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart :  and  ye 
shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls." 

The  nature  of  that  hope  which  was  in  God  for  man,  and 
which  the  atonement  has  brought  within  the  reach  of  our  spirits, 
has  indeed  been  necessarily  determined  by  our  ultimate  and 
primary  relation  to  God  as  the  Father  of  our  spirits.  And  we 
must  take  all  our  preconceptions  to  this  light,  and  more  especi- 
ally those  thoughts  of  God  as  the  moral  governor  of  the  universe, 
in  which  the  divine  fatherliness  has  been  left  out  of  account, 
and  to  which  is  to  be  referred  men's  listening  to  the  gospel 


AND  NECESSARY  CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION.     187 

simply  as  those  who  were  under  the  law,  and  not  as   God's 
offspring.      When  the  Apostle  argues,  Gal.  hi.   17,  that  "the 
covenant  which  was  confirmed  before  of  God  in  Christ,  the 
law,   which   was  four  hundred  and   thirty  years  after,  cannot 
disannul,"  he  deals  with  the  legalism  with  which  he  was  con- 
tending on  a  principle  which  may  guide  us  here.     If  we  recog- 
nise in  the  words  "  by  the  deeds  of  the  law  shall  no  flesh  living 
be  justified,"  a  reference  to  that  universal  law  under  which  all 
men  are,  and  in  relation  to  which  God  has  concluded  both  Jew 
and  Gentile  alike  as  all  under  sin  ;  if  we  take  this  universal 
ground  in  teaching  justification  by  faith,  then  must  we  in  vindi- 
cating  the   superiority  of  the  gospel  ascend  to   our  original 
relation  to  the  Father  of  our  spirits,  whose  law  it  is  that  we  have 
broken,  and  see  that  gospel  in  the  Father's  heart — that  promise 
for  man — that  hope  abiding  for  man  in  God — which  the  law 
could  not  disannul.     Is  it  not  thus  that  we  are  to  understand 
the  Apostle  Peter  when  in  the  full  light  of  redeeming  love  he 
says,  "  Wherefore  let  them  that  suffer  according  to  the  will  of 
God  commit  the  keeping  of  their  souls  to  Him  in  well  doing, 
as  unto  a  faithful  Creator  ?  "     We  are  justified  in  the  ground 
we  take  in  teaching  justification  by  faith,  only  because  in  faith 
the  hope  which  remained  in   God  for  man  is  apprehended, 
and,  being  apprehended,  becomes  in  man  a  living  hope  towards 
God. 

I  formerly  complained  of  a  subordinating  of  the  gospel  to  the 
law.  I  am  now  contending  for  the  due  subordinating  of  the 
law  to  the  gospel.  When  the  Apostle  says,  "  If  there  had  been 
a  law  given  which  could  have  given  life,  verily  righteousness 
should  have  been  by  the  law,"  it  seems  to  me  that  he  is  speak- 
ing in  the  light  of  the  subordination  of  the  law  to  the  gospel, 
for  he  is  recognising  the  giving  of  life  as  what  must  be  the  end 
of  God;  and,  therefore,  that  our  being  taken  from  under  the 
law,  and  placed  under  grace,  has  been  in  order  that  we  should 
be  alive  to  God.  Therefore  righteousness  would  not  have  been 
by  faith  any  more  than  by  the  deeds  of  the  law,  had  it  not  been 
because  of  the  life  which  in  faith  is  quickened  in  us.     "  He 


188      FURTHER  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FIXED 

that  believeth  hath  passed  from  death  unto  life."  It  is  in  thi? 
view  of  faith  that  God  the  father  of  spirits  is  just  in  justifying 
the  ungodly  who  believe.  These  words  I  have  considered 
before  ;  but,  at  the  point  at  which  we  now  stand,  it  seems  to 
-^  me  that  we  are  contemplating,  as  the  justifying  element  in  faith. 
not  only  not  an  imputation,  but  that  which  is  the  most  absolute 
opposite  of  an  imputation,  viz.,  life  from  the  dead. 

Although  the  expression  "  justification  by  faith"  be  associated 
in  our  mind  with  all  preaching  of  the  atonement,  the  teaching 
of  Luther  is  that  alone  of  all  the  forms  of  thought  on  this 
subject  considered  above  with  which  that  expression  really 
harmonises,  for  him  alone  have  we  found  teaching  that  it  is 
faith  itself  which  God  recognises  as  righteousness :  and  how 
excellent  a  manner  of  righteousness  faith  is  in  Luther's  appre- 
hension, and  how  righteous  it  is  in  God  to  count  it  righteous- 
ness, has  been  sufficiently  illustrated,  even  by  the  quotations  to 
which  I  have  limited  myself.  In  what  he  so  writes,  the  words 
of  the  Apostle,  "  was  strong  in  faith  giving  glory  to  God,"  are 
the  text — the  axiom  I  should  rather  say — from  which  Luther 
reasons.  That  condition  of  the  human  spirit  in  which  most 
glory  is  given  to  God  he  regards  as  self-evidently  the  highest 
righteousness,  and  that  condition  is  faith. 

But  the  glory  given  to  God  in  faith  must  be  in  proportion  to 
the  depth  and  fulness  of  the  apprehension  of  what  God  is 
which  faith  embraces,  and  to  which  it  responds.  In  proportion, 
therefore,  as  God  is  revealed  by  the  atonement,  and  as,  in  con- 
sequence, he  that  believes  is  in  the  light  of  what  God  is,  and  by 
his  faith  trusts  and  glorifies  God  as  He  is,  in  that  proportion  is 
the  righteousness  of  faith  enhanced  and  exalted.  "  No  man 
hath  seen  God  at  any  time.  The  only-begotten  Son,  who 
dwelleth  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  He  hath  declared  Him." 
He  that  hath  seen  the  Son  hath  seen  the  Father,  and  he  who, 
seeing  the  Father  in  the  revelation  of  Him  by  the  Son,  hath 
faith  in  Him  as  the  Father,  attains  the  highest  form  of  faith, — 
a  faith  which  is  the  fellowship  of  the  Son's  apprehension  of 
the    Father  —  indeed,    is    sonship,  —  and   utters   itself  in   the 


AND  NECESSARY  CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION.     189 

cry,  Abba,  Father.  This  is  its  nature ;  this,  whatever  its 
measure. 

But,  when  the  subject  of  justification  by  faith  takes  this  form 
in  our  thoughts,  we  have  no  longer  any  difficulty  in  recognising 
faith  as  "  the  highest  righteousness  ; "  for  how  can  we  otherwise 
conceive  of  that  which  is  the  fellowship  of  Christ's  own  right- 
eousness, the  righteousness  given  to  us  in  the  gift  of  Christ, 
who  is  "  made  of  God  unto  us  wisdom,  and  righteousness,  and 
sanctification,  and  redemption  ?  " 

I  have  intentionally  kept  before  the  reader's  mind  longer 
than  was  necessary  for  the  simple  expression  of  it,  the  distinc- 
tion between  contemplating  the  blood  of  Christ  as  shed  with 
direct  reference  to  the  purging  of  our  consciences  from  dead 
works  to  serve  the  living  God,  and  contemplating  it  as  shed  with 
direct  reference  to  our  deliverance  from  the  punishment  of  sin. 
In  addition  to  the  character  of  the  whole  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
as  setting  forth  the  well-being  of  man  as  standing  in  his  being 
an  accepted  worshipper,  and,  therefore,  the  atonement  for  sin 
needed  as  the  shedding  of  blood  that  would  make  perfect  as 
pertains  to  the  conscience,  I  may  recall  to  the  reader  the 
relation  to  righteous  judgment  in  which  the  typical  and  the 
antitypical  shedding  of  blood  are  both  represented  in  the  words, 
"  He  that  despised  Moses'  law  died  without  mercy  under  two 
or  three  witnesses  :  of  how  much  sorer  punishment,  suppose  ye, 
shall  he  be  thought  worthy,  who  hath  trodden  underfoot  the 
Son  of  God,  and  hath  counted  the  blood  of  the  covenant, 
wherewith  he  was  sanctified,  an  unholy  thing,  and  hath  done 
despite  unto  the  Spirit  of  grace  ?  "  But  in  dwelling  as  I  have 
done  upon  the  distinction  between  a  man's  not  coming  into 
condemnation,  because  the  blood  of  Christ  is  known  by  him  as 
a  living  way  into  the  holiest,  and,  through  the  faith  of  it,  he  has 
passed  from  death  unto  life ;  and  a  man's  not  coming  into  con- 
demnation because  the  blood  of  Christ  was  shed  for  him,  and 
the  punishment  of  his  sins  borne  by  Christ, — my  great  anxiety 
has  been  to  get  to  the  right  point  of  view  in  considering  man's 
well-being, — that  point  from  which  God  is  seen  as  the  fountain 


190      FURTHER  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FIXED 

of  life,  in  whose  favour  is  life  ;  and,  therefore,  the  question  of 
salvation  is  seen  to  be  simply  the  question  of  participation  in 
that  favour  as  it  is  the  outgoing  of  a  living  love,  the  love  of  the 
Father's  heart,  and  not  as  the  mere  favourable  sentence  of  a 
judge  and  ruler,  setting  the  mind  at  ease  in  reference  to  the 
demands  of  the  law  of  His  moral  government. 

With  this  same  purpose  have  I  above  entered  as  I  have  done 
into  the  questions  connected  with  justification ;  and  if  I  have 
appeared  to  forget,  as  I  have  not  for  a  moment  done,  the  dis- 
tinction made  between  justification  and  sanctification,  it  is  that 
I  have  hoped  that  the  real  spiritual  truth  that  is  in  justification 
being  once  seen,  the  subject  would  take  its  right  form  in  the 
mind  of  itself.  That  "  righteousness  "  as  a  part  of  what  Christ 
is  said  to  be  "  made  of  God  unto  us,"  has  come  to  be  dealt  with 
on  a  principle  entirely  distinct  from  that  on  which  men  have 
dealt  with  "wisdom,"  and  "sanctification,"  and  "redemption," 
has  been  owing  to  the  exigencies  of  a  legal  system ;  but  such 
an  error  has  been  possible  only  because  it  has  not  been  seen 
that  these  are  all  alike  elements  of  the  eternal  life  which  we 
have  in  Christ.  For  Christ  is  all  these  to  us  just  in  that  Hejs 
our  life,  nor  otherwise  than  as  living  by  Him  are  we  "righteous" 
any  more  than  we  can  otherwise  be  "wise,"  "holy,"  "redeemed," 
that  is,  free  men, — free  with  the  liberty  wherewith  the  Son  of 
God  maketh  free. 

Nothing,  indeed,  has  done  more  to  confirm  the  mind  in  that 
tendency  to  seek  in  the  atonement  what  will  come  directly 
between  us  and  the  punishment  of  sin,  instead  of  seeking  in  it 
the  secret  and  the  power  of  returning  to  God, — recognising  sin 
and  all  misery  as  what  are  together  left  behind  in  returning  to 
God, — than  the  distinction  made  between  justification  and 
sanctification,  when  justification  is  connected  with  a  demand  in 
the  mind  of  our  judge  which  may  be  met  in  an  arbitrary  way, 
as  by  imputation  or  imagined  transferred  fruits  of  righteous- 
ness, while  sanctification  is  recognised  as  having  its  necessity 
in  the  truth  of  things,  in  that  without  holiness  no  man  shall 
see  God ;  as  if  righteousness  in  man  had  no  such  relation  to 


AND  NECESSARY  CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION.     191 

righteousness  in  God,  as  holiness  in  man  has  to  holiness  in 
God. 

As  to  the  supposed  necessity  for  God's  imputing  righteousness 
that  He  may  see  us  as  perfectly  righteous,  why  must  our  parti- 
cipation in  Christ's  righteousness  be  the  meeting  of  a  demand 
for  perfection  any  more  than  our  participation  in  His  holiness, 
or  His  wisdom,  or  the  freedom  that  is  in  Him?     All  is  perfect 
in  Him,  and  He  and  His  perfection  belong  to  us ;  but  all  in 
the  same  sense.     But,  when  the  righteousness  contemplated  is 
understood  to  be  the  righteousness  of  faith,   of  faith  in  the 
Father's  heart  as  revealed  by  the  Son, — of  the  faith,  therefore, 
by  which  the  life  of  son  ship  is  quickened  and  sustained, — this 
demand  for  a  legal  perfection  is  seen  to  be  altogether  foreign 
to  that  with  which  we  are  occupied.     The  feeblest  cry  of  the 
spirit  of  sonship  is  sure  of  a  response  in  the  Father's  heart, 
being  welcome  from  its  own  very  nature,  as  well  as  for  that  of 
which  it  is  the  promise,  as  it  is  also  the  fruit ;  for  it  both  comes 
from  and  grows  into  the  perfect  sonship  which  is  in  Christ. 
Confidence  is  of  the  essence  of  this  cry, — hope  in  the  fatherli- 
ness  towards  which  is  its  outgoing.     Reader,  say,  does  it  not 
jar  with  this  cry,  does  it  not  mar  its  simplicity,  its  truth,  to  be 
required  to  pause  and  say,  "  I  would  cry  to  my  Father,  I  see 
His  heart  towards  me, — the  Son  reveals  it ;  but  I  must  remem- 
ber that  to  be  justified  in  drawing  near  with  confidence  I  must 
think  of  myself  as  clothed  by  imputation  with  a  perfect  righteous- 
ness, because  the  Father  of  my  spirit  must  see  me  as  so  clothed 
in  order  that  He  may  be  justified  in  receiving  me  to  His  fatherly 
heart?"     Would  not  this  thought  mar  the  simplicity  of  the 
child's  cry — would  it  not  indeed  altogether  change  the  essence 
of  the  confidence  cherished?     But  the  thought  of  the  righteous- 
ness which  God  has  accepted  in  accepting  Christ,  the  righteous- 
ness to  which  the  words,   "  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I 
am  well  pleased,   hear  ye   Him,"  turn  the  mind,  altogether 
encourages  the  child's  cry  in  us, — indeed,  is  its  source ;  for  to 
cherish,  to  utter  that  cry,  is  the  spiritual  obedience  the  word, 
"hear  ye  Him."      But  I  almost  repeat  what   I   said  before. 


I92      FURTHER  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FIXED 

Only  I  hope  that  in  that  light  of  the  elements  of  the  atonement 
in  which  justification  is  now  before  us,  the  oneness  of  the  con- 
fidence which  the  faith  of  Christ  quickens  in  us  with  the  con- 
fidence in  which  He  went  before  us  in  that  path  of  life  which 
He  has  opened  up  for  us,  and  which  He  Himself  is  to  us,  will 
be  more  clearly  recognised. 

I  have  now  asked,  why  should  the  divine  demand  for 
righteousness  in  men,  which  God  has  Himself  met  and  provided 
for  by  the  gift  of  Christ,  giving  us  in  Him  all  things  pertaining 
to  life  and  to  godliness,  making  us  complete  in  Him, — why 
should  this  demand  of  the  divine  mind  for  righteousness  be 
seen  as  met  on  another  principle  than  that  on  which  the 
demand  for  holiness  is^met?  All  these  demands  are  truly, 
fully  met.  Christ  came  not  to  destroy  the  law  but  to  fulfil. 
But  if  in  connexion  with  all  that  varied  perfection  in  humanity 
which  is  in  the  Son  of  God,  all  humanity  may  be  dealt  with, 
and  is  dealt  with,  by  God,  the  preciousness  of  that  perfection 
shedding  its  own  glory  over  all  humanity,  and  being  ever  to  the 
heart  of  a  Father  a  promise  for  all  humanity,  and  if  the  heart  of 
the  Father  waits  in  hope  for  our  "growing  up  into  Him  in  all 
things,  which  is  the  head  even  Christ,"  (Ephesians  iv.  15,)  why 
should  a  fiction  be  introduced  to  give  a  character  of  perfection 
to  our  individual  righteousness  before  God  which  has  no  place 
in  relation  to  our  part  in  the  other  elements  of  the  perfection 
that  is  in  Christ  ?  I  have  already  expressed  my  conviction  that 
that  in  us  which  in  full  light  welcomes  this  ordination  of  a 
kingdom  in  the  hands  of  a  mediator,  is  what  has,  in  part  at 
least,  made  the  reception  of  this  doctrine  of  the  imputation  01 
Christ's  perfection  to  those  who  believe,  possible.  But-*n  the 
light  of  the  atonement  the  heart  feels  no  need  of  any  fiction  for 
its  peace.  The  confidence  in  the  Father,  which  the  revelation 
of  the  Father  by  the  Son  quickens,  has  its  witness  in  itself, — 
its  sanction  in  its  own  nature.  Its  spiritual  relation  to  that  in 
God  toward  which  it  goes  forth  justifies  it  to  the  conscience. 
For,  in  truth,  it  is  but  the  due  response  to  the  Father  testifying 
to  us  that  He  has  given  to  us  eternal  life  in  the  Son, — that  testi- 


AND  NECESSARY  CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION.     193 

mony  of  God  in  the  spirit,  which  being  heard  by  us  in  the  spirit 
effectually  calls  us  to  the  confidence  of  sonship.  Therefore 
does  one  Apostle  say,  "if  our  hearts  condemn  us  not,  then  have 
we  confidence  towards  God,"  and  another  Apostle,  "  the  Spirit 
beareth  witness  with  our  spirit  that  we  are  the  sons  of  God." 
And  such  expressions  accord  with  what  I  have  urged  above, 
viz.  that  our  knowledge  that  we  are  justified  should  be  of 
the  same  spiritual  nature  with  the  true  knowledge  that  we 
are  sinners,  and  not  be  sought  in  that  way  of  inference  from  the 
fact  that  we  believe  combined  with  the  doctrine  that  those  that 
believe  are  justified,  to  which  men  have  had  recourse  and  on 
which,  indeed,  they  have  necessarily  been  thrown  when  arti- 
ficial conceptions  of  justification  by  faith  have  been  adopted. 

That  nothing  artificial,  but  something  the  deep  reality  of 
which  is  proved  in  the  consciousness  of  the  individual  justified, 
is  contemplated  in  the  beginning  of  the  8th  chapter  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans,  it  is  impossible  to  doubt.  The  misery 
recorded  in  the  close  of  the  7th  chapter  is  not  more  real,  more 
a  matter  of  consciousness,  than  the  salvation  for  which  thanks 
are  rendered;  nor  is  the  law  of  sin  in  the  members  causing  that 
misery  more  a  thing  known  by  the  individual  than  "  the  law  of 
the  Spirit  of  life  in  Christ,  which  makes  free  from  the  law  of  sin 
and  death."  Therefore,  the  freedom  from  condemnation,  in 
other  words,  the  justification  through  being  in  Christ  Jesus, 
spoken  of,  is  clearly  one  with  that  cleansing  by  the  blood  of 
Christ,  that  purging  of  the  conscience,  on  which  I  have  dwelt 
so  much  ;  nor  can  it  be  at  all  separated  from  that  "  fulfilment 
of  the  righteousness  of  the  law  "  in  those  "  who  walk  not  after 
the  flesh,  but  after  the  Spirit,"  which  the  Apostle  goes  on  to 
mention  as  the  direct  end  which  God  has  contemplated  in 
sending  His  Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  and  as  a  sacri- 
fice for  sin,  and  so  condemning  sin  in  the  flesh.  The  subjective 
character  of  this  passage, — that  is  to  say,  the  relation  between 
freedom  from  condemnation  and  the  condition  of  a  man's  own 
spirit  which  it  recognises, — and  the  place  which  it  ascribes  to 
the  law  of  the  Spirit  of  the  life  that  is  in  Christ  in  connexion 


194      FURTHER  ILLUSTRATION  OF  THE  FIXED 

with  this  freedom,  that  is  in  connection  with  justification,  is  too 
broadly  marked  to  permit  its  being  quoted  in  favour  of  the 
doctrine  of  justification  by  an  imputation  of  righteousness. 

But  the  conditions  of  true  peace  of  conscience  must  always 
be  the  same  ;  and  therefore,  although  the  first  verse  of  the 
fifth  chapter  is  so  quoted,  we  must  believe  that  that  in  Christ 
in  respect  of  which  thanks  are  rendered  that  "  there  is  no 
condemnation  to  them  who  are  in  Christ  Jesus,"  is  present  to 
the  mind  of  the  Apostle  when  he  speaks  of  "peace  with  God 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ"  in  connexion  with  "  being 
justified  by  faith."  This  language,  indeed,  occurs  in  immediate 
connexion  with  that  reference  to  the  glory  given  to  God  in  the 
faith  of  Abraham  which  sheds  such  clear  light  on  the  right- 
eousness of  God  in  recognising  faith  as  righteousness :  while, 
in  saying  that  faith  shall  be  imputed  to  us  for  righteousness, 
"  if  we  believe  on  Him  that  raised  up  our  Lord  Jesus  from  the 
dead,  who  was  delivered  for  our  offences,  and  raised  again  for 
our  justification,"  the  Apostle  has  brought  before  us  that  in 
God  which  the  faith  by  which  we  are  to  glorify  God  must 
apprehend  and  trust.  For  faith,  in  trusting  God,  does  so  in 
response  to  that  mind  of  God  in  relation  to  man  which  is 
revealed  to  us  in  our  being  embraced  in  Christ's  expiatory 
confession  of  our  sins,  when,  by  the  grace  of  God,  He  tasted 
death  for  every  man,  and  in  that  perfect  righteousness  of  son- 
ship  in  humanity  which  Christ  presented  to  the  father  on 
behalf  of  all  humanity  as  the  true  righteousness  of  man,  and, 
which,  in  raising  Him  from  the  dead,  the  Father  has  sealed  to 
us  as  our  true  righteousness.  This  gracious  mind  of  God  in 
relation  to  us  it  is  that  our  faith  accepts  and  responds  to ;  for 
our  faith  is,  in  truth,  the  Amen  of  our  individual  spirits  to  that 
deep,  multiform,  all-embracing,  harmonious  Amen  of  humanity, 
in  the  person  of  the  Son  of  God,  to  the  mind  and  heart  of  the 
Father  in  relation  to  man, — the  divine  wrath  and  the  divine 
mercy,  which  is  the  atonement.  This  Amen  of  the  individual, 
in  which  faith  utters  itself  towards  God,  gives  glory  to  God 
according  to  the  glory  which  he  has  in  Christ ;  therefore  does 


AND  NECESSARY  CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION.     195 

faith  justify  :  and  this  justification  is  not  only  pronounced  in 
the  mind  of  God,  who  accepts  the  confidence  towards  Himself, 
which  the  faith  of  His  grace  in  Christ  has  quickened  in  us, 
imputing  it  to  us  as  righteousness,  but  is  also  testified  to  by  the 
Spirit  of  truth  in  the  conscience  of  him  in  whom  this  Amen  is 
a  living  voice — a  spiritual  mind — the  fellowship  of  that  mind 
in  the  Son  of  God  by  the  faith  of  which  it  is  quickened.  The 
Amen  of  the  individual  human  spirit  to  the  Amen  of  the  Son 
to  the  mind  of  the  Father  in  relation  to  man,  is  saving  faith — 
true  righteousness  ;  being  the  living  action,  and  true  and  right 
movement  of  the  spirit  of  the  individual  man  in  the  light  of 
eternal  life.  And  the  certainty  that  God  has  accepted  that 
perfect  and  divine  Amen  as  uttered  by  Christ  in  humanity  is 
necessarily  accompanied  by  the  peaceful  assurance  that  in 
uttering,  in  whatever  feebleness,  a  true  Amen  to  that  high  Amen, 
the  individual  who  is  yielding  himself  to  the  spirit  of  Christ  to 
have  it  uttered  in  him  is  accepted  of  God.  This  Amen  in  man 
is  the  due  response  to  that  word,  "  Be  ye  reconciled  to  God;" 
for  the  gracious  and  gospel  character  of  which  word,  as  the 
tenderest  pleading  that  can  be  addressed  to  the  most  sin- 
burdened  spirit,  I  have  contended  above.  This  Amen  is  son- 
shipj  for  the  gospel-call,  "  Be  ye  reconciled  to  God,"  when 
heard  in  the  light  of  the  knowledge  that  "  God  made  Him  to 
be  sin  for  us  who  knew  no  sin,  that  we  might  be  made  the 
righteousness  of  God  in  Him,"  is  understood  to  be  the  call  to 
each  one  of  us  on  the  part  of  the  Father  of  our  spirits,  "  My 
son,  give  me  thine  heart,"  addressed  to  us  on  the  ground  of 
that  work  by  which  the  Son  has  declared  the  Father's  Name 
that  the  love  wherewith  the  Father  hath  loved  Him  may  be  in 
us^and  He  in  us.  In  the  light  itself  of  that  Amen  to  the 
mind  of  the  Father  in  relation  to  man  which  shines  to  us  in  the 
atonement,  we  see  the  righteousness  of  God  in  accepti?ig  the 
atonement,  and  in  that  same  light  the  Amen  of  the  individual 
human  spirit  to  that  divine  Amen  of  the  Son  of  God,  is  seen 
to  be  what  the  divine  righteousness  will  necessarily  acknowledge 
as  the  end  of  the  atonement  accomplished, 


196  CHARACTER  OF  SALVATION. 

I  have  illustrated  above  the  distinction  between  the  righteous- 
ness of  faith  and  self-righteousness,  and  the  way  in  which  faith 
excludes  boasting,  while  introducing  us  into  the  light  of  God's 
favour,  and  have  anticipated  what  would  have  been  urged  with 
advantage  here  as  the  justification  of  God  in  accounting  faith 
righteousness.  I  only  add  now,  that,  as  in  illustrating  the 
elements  of  the  atonement,  I  have  desired  that  the  reader 
should  see  by  its  own  light  the  suitableness  and  adequacy  of  the 
moral  and  spiritual  expiation  for  sin  which  Christ  has  made,  and 
should  see  all  such  expressions  as  "  A  way  into  the  holiest," 
— "  Propitiation," — "  Reconciliation," — "  Peace  with  God," — 
in  that  light  of  our  spiritual  relation  to  the  Father  of  our 
spirits  which  demands  for  them  a  spiritual,  as  distinguished 
from  a  mere  legal  meaning ;  so,  now,  I  have  sought  for  "Justi- 
fication by  faith "  a  spiritual  and  self-evidencing  character, 
and  that  the  attitude  towards  God  of  a  human  spirit  in  the 
light  of  that  will  of  God  which  the  Son  of  God  came  to  do  and 
has  done  cherishing  a  confidence  towards  God  in  harmony  with 
that  light  shall  be  felt  to  be  the  right  attitude  towards  God  of 
the  spirit  of  man, — that  in  which  are  combined  God's  glory  in 
man  and  man's  salvation  in  God. 

I  have  sought  for  justification  by  faith  this  self-evidencing 
character,  not  fearing  by  this  to  open  the  door  for  a  self-righteous 
and  presumptuous  confidence, — believing  that  the  true  confi- 
dence alone  can  preclude  the  false  in  all  its  measures  and 
forms.  The  Amen  of  faith, — the  being  reconciled  to  God, — 
peace  with  God  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, — these,  in 
meekness  and  lowliness,  are  known  in  the  light  of  the  atone- 
ment. For  that  light  of  eternal  life  harmonises  us  with  itself 
and  so  with  God :  and  in  it  it  is  impossible  to  trust  in  self, — 
impossible  not  to  trust  in  God, — impossible  to  doubt  that  this 
trust  in  God  is  true  righteousness, — impossible  to  doubt  that 
God  is  just  in  being  the  justifier  of  him  that  believeth  in 
Jesus, 


197 


CHAPTER   IX. 

THE    INTERCESSION    WHICH    WAS    AN    ELEMENT    IN    THE   ATONE- 
*""MENT    CONSIDERED    AS    PRAYER. 

TN  recognising  at  the  outset  a  need-be  for  the  atonement  I 
sought  to  separate  between  what  is  sound  and  true  in  the 
feelings  of  awakened  sinners  and  what  is  to  be  referred  to  their 
remaining  spiritual  darkness.  At  the  same  time  I  have  desired 
that  we  should  be  in  the  position  of  learning  from  the  atone- 
ment itself  why  it  was  needed,  as  well  as  how  it  has  accom- 
plished that  for  which  it  was  needed.  The  error  which  in  its 
grossest  form  has  amounted  to  representing  the  Son  as  by  the 
atonement  exercising  an  influence  over  the  Father  to  make 
Him  gracious  towards  us,  (but  which,  even  when  such  a 
thought  as  this  would  be  disclaimed,  has  still  led  to  seeking 
in  the  atonement  a  ground  of  confidence  towards  God  distinct 
from  what  it  has  revealed  as  the  mind  of  God  towards  man,) 
has  become  very  manifest  in  the  light  of  the  nature  of  the 
atonement  as  a  fulfilling  of  the  purpose  of  the  Son  "  Lo,  I 
come  to  do  thy  will,  O  God," — His  "  declaring  of  the  Father's 
Name."  In  the  light  of  that  will  as  fulfilled, — that  Name  as 
declared,  our  faith  has  been  raised  to  the  Eternal  Will  itself 
thus  revealed,  to  the  Unchanging  name  thus  declared  :  as  the 
Apostle  speaks  of  those  that  believe  in  Christ  as  those  "  who 
by  Him  do  believe  in  God,  who  raised  Him  from  the  dead, 
and  gave  Him  glory  ;  that  our  faith  and  hope  might  be  in  God." 
i  Peter  i.  21.     Yet  it  seems  to  me  that  in   this  high  spiritual 

Q 


ii 


198  THE  INTERCESSION  WHICH  WAS  AN  ELEMENT 

region  some  of  the  difficulties  which  we  experience  in  all  our 
deeper  meditations  on  the  ways  of  God  are  more  realised  when 
we  are  fully  delivered  from  the  error  to  which  I  have  now 
referred  than  they  were  before.  I  say  this,  contemplating 
especially  the  aspect  of  the  atonement  as  a  dealing  of  the  Son 
with  the  Father  on  our  behalf — a  mediation,  an  intercession.  I 
have  spoken  of  the  nature  and  ground  of  this  intercession,  of 
its  combination  with  the  confession  of  our  sins  and  of  its 
relation  to  our  Lord's  own  consciousness  in  humanity — His 
experience  of  sonship  in  humanity — His  experience  of  abiding 
in  humanity  in  the  Father's  favour.  But  a  more  close  considera- 
tion of  what  is  implied  in  intercession  as  intercession  seems 
called  for — a  more  close  consideration,  that  is,  of  the  hope  for 
man  in  which  the  Son  of  God  made  His  soul  an  offering  for 
sin.  as  that  hope  was  a  hope  in  God,  sustained  by  faith  and 
prayer. 

We  are  so  much  in  the  way  of  looking  on  the  work  of  Christ 
as  the  acting  out  of  a  pre-arranged  plan,  that  its  character  as  a 
natural  progress  and  development,  in  which  one  thing  arises 
out  of  another,  and  is  really  caused  by  that  other,  is  with  diffi- 
culty realised.  Yet  we  must  get  deliverance  from  this  tempta- 
tion,— the  painful  temptation  to  think  of  Christ's  work  as  almost 
a  scenic  representation, — otherwise  we  never  can  have  the  con- 
sciousness of  getting  the  true  knowledge  of  eternal  realities 
from  the  atonement.  All  light  of  life  for  us  disappears  from 
the  life  of  Christ  unless  that  life  be  to  us  a  life  indeed,  and  not 
the  mere  acting  of  an  assigned  part.  Unless  we  realise  that  in 
very  truth  Christ  loved  us  as  He  did  Himself,  we  cannot  under- 
stand how  near  an  approach  to  a  personal  feeling  there  has 
been  in  His  feeling  of  our  sins,  and  of  our  misery  as  sinners. 
Unless  we  realise  that  His  love  to  Himself  and  to  us  was  the 
love  of  one  who  loved  the  Father  with  all  His  heart,  and  mind, 
and  soul,  and  strength,  we  cannot  understand  the  nature  of  the 
burden  which  our  sins  were  to  Him,  what  it  was  to  His  heart 
that  we  were  to  the  Father  rebellious  children,  or  how  certainly 
nothing  could  satisfy  His  heart  as  a  redemption  for  us,  but  that 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT  CONSIDERED  AS  PRAYER.   199 

we  should  come  to  follow  God  as  dear  children  in  the  fellow- 
ship of  His  own  sonship.  Unless  we  contemplate  His  sense  of 
our  sin  and  His  desire  to  accomplish  for  us  this  great  salvation 
as  livingly  working  in  Him  and  practically  influencing  Him, 
we  cannot  understand  how  truly  He  made  His  soul  an  offering 
for  sin,  when,  receiving  into  Himself  the  full  sense  of  the  divine 
condemnation  of  sin,  He  dealt  on  behalf  of  man  with  the  ulti- 
mate and  absolute  root  of  judgment  in  God,  presenting  the 
expiation  of  the  due  confession  of  sin,  and  in  so  doing  at  once 
opening  for  the  divine  forgiveness  a  channel  in  which  it  could 
freely  flow  to  us, — and  for  us  a  way  in  which  we  could  approach 
God.  And,  finally,  unless  we  apprehend  the  encouraging  con- 
siderations by  which  the  love  of  Christ  was  sustained  in  making 
this  expiatory  offering — unless  we  have  present  to  our  minds 
His  faith  in  the  deep  yearnings  of  the  Father's  heart  over  men 
His  offspring,  joined  with  His  own  conscious  experience  in 
humanity  which  testified  that  these  yearnings  could  be  satisfied, 
— unless  we  conceive  to  ourselves  how  naturally  and  necessarily 
these  thoughts  took  the  form  of  prayer,  laying  hold  of  that  hope 


for  man  which  was  in  God, — unless,  as  it  were,  we  hear  the 
intercession  thus  made  for  man,  and  see  the  grounds  on  which 
it  proceeds,  we  cannot  understand  what  is  made  known  to  us 
of  the  Name  of  God  by  the  success  of  this  pjeading^on  our 
behalf, — we  cannot  see  how  this  appeal  to  the  heart  of  the 
Father  becomes,  in  being  responded  to,  the  full  revelation  of 
the  Father  to  us  ;  and  that  in  proportion  as  we  apprehend  the 
nature  and  grounds  of  that  intercession,  and  realise  that  it  has 
been  perfectly  responded  to,  we  know  the  grace  wherein  we 
stand,  what  that  faith  in  God  is  to  which  we  are  called,  what 
the  grounds  are  on  which  we  are  to  put  our  trust  in  Him. 
Faith  must  make  us  present  to  the  work  of  our  redemption  in 
its  progress  as  well  as  in  its  result,  so  that  the  love  which  is 
working  for  us — the  difficulties  which  that  love  encounters — the 
way  in  which  it  deals  with  them — the  salvation  which  it  accom- 
plishes— all  may  shed  their  light  on  our  spirits  and  be  to  us  the 
light  of  life. 


200  THE  INTERCESSION  WHICH  WAS  AN  ELEMENT 

But  the  faith  that  makes  this  history  a  reality  to  our  spirits, 
while  difficult  as  to  every  part  of  this  realisation,  is  most  diffi- 
cult when  we  are  occupied  with  that  intercession  of  Christ 
which  is  the  perfecting  element  in  the  atonement, — making  it 
literally  an  offering.  It  is  not  so  difficult  to  realise  how  to  the 
perfect  holiness  and  love  which  were  in  Christ  our  sins  should 
be  so  heavy  a  burden, — nor  Js  it  difficult  to  realise  His  inter- 
course with  the  Father  while  He  bore  our  sins  on  His  spirit  as 
that  response  to  the  Father's  mind  concerning  them  which  has 
now  been  represented  as  an  expiatory  confession  of  our  guilt. 
We  also  easily  see  how  the  Saviour's  own  conscious  experience 
in  humanity,  doing  His  Fathers  commandments,  and  abiding 
in  His  love,  would  both  determine  the  character  of  the  redemp- 
tion which  He  would  seek  for  us,  and  be  an  element  in  His 
hope  towards  God  for  us, — a  hope  which  He  would  cherish  in 
conscious  oneness  with  His  Father.  But  when  we  consider 
Christ's  hope  for  man  as  taking  the  form  nf  intercession,  and 
see  that  His  knowledge  of  the  Fathers  will  is  so  far  from  sug- 
gesting an  inactive  waiting  in  the  expectation  that  all  will 
necessarily  be  as  the  Father  wills,  that  on  the  contrary,  that 
knowledge  only  moves  to  earnest  pleading  and  entreaty, — the 
hope  cherished  seeking  to  realise  itself  by  laying  hold  in  a  way 
of  prayerful  trust  on  that  in  the  heart  of  the  Father  by  which  it 
is  encouraged, — then  the  difficulty  that  always  haunts  us  as  to 
the  ordinance  of  prayer — the  difficulty,  I  mean,  of  the  idea  of 
God's  interposing  prayer  between  His  own  loving  desire  for  us 
and  the  fulfilment  of  that  desire  instead  of  fulfilling  that  desire 
without  waiting  to  be  entreated — this  difficulty  is  felt  to  be 
present  with  our  minds  in  this  highest  region  in  which  the  Son 
is  represented  as  by  prayer,  and  intense  and  earnest  and 
agonizing  prayer,  obtaining  for  us  from  the  Father  what  the 
Father  has  infinitely  desired  to  give — what  He  has  given  in 
giving  Him  to  us  as  our  Redeemer  to  wliose  intercession  it  is 
•  /  yielded.  Here  we  have  the  divine  love  in  Christ  pleading  with 
I  the  divine  love  in  the  Father,  and  thus  obtaining  for  us  that 
I  eternal  life,  which  yet  in  giving  the  Son  to  be  our  Saviour  the 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT  CONSIDERED  AS  PRAYER.  201 

Father  is  truly  said  to  have  given.  The  difficulty  is  that  which 
haunts  us  in  our  own  prayers;  but  it  is  the  same,  and  no  other: 
and  if  we  are  enabled  to  deal  rightly  with  it  as  it  meets  us  here 
it  will  be  an  increase  of  practical  freedom  to  us  in  our  individual 
walk  with  God. 

What  I  have  now  been  attempting  has  been  to  see  and  trace 
the  atonement  by  its  own  light,  viz.  the  light  of  the  life  which 
was  taking  form  in  it  according  to  the  words,  "  In  Him  was 
life,' and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men."  Proceeding  in  this  way 
the  intercession_of  Christ  has  presented  itself  as  a  form  which 
His  love  must  naturally  take.  That  it  would  take  the  form  of 
desiring  for  us  what  His  intercession  asked  for  us  was  quite 
clear.  But  we  could  not  conceive  of  that  desire  as  cherished 
in  conscious  weakness  and  dependence  on  the  Father  and  yet 
in  conscious  oneness  with  the  Father,  without  conceiving  of  it 
as  uttering  Jtself  to  the  Father  in  prayer.  With  all  the  weight 
of  all  our  need  upon  His  spirit — bearing  our  burden — that  He 
should  cast  this  burden  upon  the  Father  appeared  the  perfection 
of  sonship  towards  the  Father  and  brotherhood  towards  us. 
And  as  this  intercession  seemed  a  natural  form  for  the  love  of 
Christ  .to  take,  so  did  it  seem  what  must  be  to  the  Father  a 
sacrifice  of  a  sweet-smelling  savour ;  and  we  felt  that  no  aspect 
of  the  perfprj^s<">nship  in  humanity  which  the  life  of  Christ  pre- 
sented to  the  Father  could  be  more  welcome  to  the  heart  of 
the  Father  than  that  of  love  to  men,  His  brethren,  as  thus  per- 
fected in  intercession;  especially  as  being  intercession  for 
brethren  who  also  were  enemies,  making  the  intercession  to  be 
the  perfection  of  forgiving  love.  This  indeed  was  to  God,  who 
is  love,  a  sacrifice  of  a  sweet-smelling  savour  from  humanity 
which  must  have  been  infinitely  grateful  in  itself;  while  as  part 
of  the  perfection  that  was  in  Christ  this  intercession  was  a  most 
excellent  part  of  that  promise  for  humanity  in  respect  of  which 
Christ's  perfection  is  to  be  contemplated  as  pleading  for 
humanity.  Any  father  who  has  ever  been  privileged  to  have 
one  child  pleading  for  forgiveness  to  another  child  for  an 
offence  which  has  been  unkindness  to  the  interceding  child 


f! 


202' THE  INTERCESSION  WHICH  WAS  AN  ELEMENT 

himself  has  here  some  help  to  his  faith  in  his  own  experi- 
ence. 

But  though  all  this  is  felt  by  us  to  be  natural  and  what  arises 
out  of  the  life  of  love  which  was  in  Christ,  yet,  approaching  it 
not  by  this  path  but  by  the  path  of  meditation  on  Christ  as  the 
gift  of  the  Father, — meditation  on  all  that  interest  in  us  which 


Christ's  love  is  feeling,  and  under  the  power  of  which  it  is  in- 
terceding, as  already  in  the  Father  and  already  desiring  to 
impart  all  that  Christ  is  asking  for  us — nay,  as  having  really 
bestowed  it  in  the  gift  of  Christ — the  difficulty  of  which  I  have 
spoken  suggests  itself.  We  ask,  how  has  this  intercession  been 
necessary  ?  We  ask,  how  Christ  should  have  felt  it  necessary  ? 
A  Christian  philosopher  of  our  own  time  has  said  that  whereas 
once  he  had  thought  of  prayer  as  the  expression  of  a  want  ot 
faith  in  God's  goodness  he  afterwards  came  to  understand  that 
prayer  was  the  highest  expression  of  faith  in  God's  goodness. 
Assuredly  He  who  came  to  make  known  the  goodness  of  God 
and  that  towards  us  men  it  is  the  highest  form  of  goodness, 
even  fatherliness,  which  on  a  superficial  view  might  seem  most 
to  supersede  all  prayer, — leaving  room  only  for  thanksgiving 
and  praise — has  been  as  distinguished  by  the  depth  and  inten- 
sity of  His  praying  to  the  Father  as  of  His  faith  in  the  Father's 
fatherliness;  nor  is  there  any  part  of  His  testimony  for  the 
Father  as  He  was  the  witness  for  God  more  marked  than  His 
testimony  that  God  is  the  hearer  and  answerer  of  prayer.  In 
Him  we  see  that  knowledge  of  the  Father's  will  and  confidence 
in  His  love  supersede  not  prayer,  but,  on  the  contrary,  only 
move  to  prayer,  giving  strength  for  it — making  it  the  prayer  of 
faith  and  hope  and  love — love  perfected  in  thus  flowing  back 
to  its  own  fountain.  The  fact  of  Christ's  "  intercession  for  the 
transgressors  "  accords  with  and  confirms  what  we  feel  in  medi- 
tating on  the  life  of  love  that  was  in  Him,  viz.  that  such  inter- 
cession was  the  fitting  form  for  His  bearing  of  our  burdens  to 
take,  what  in  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  the  hope  that  was 
for  us  in  God  it  must  take ;  while  to  give  place  to  the  thought 
of  anything  dramatic — the  acting  out  of  a  pre-arranged  part — in 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT  CONSIDERED  AS  PRAYER.  203 

regard  to  that  recorded  intercession  (and  the  intercession  indi- 
cated  i*  infinitely  beyond  w|iat  is  recorded^,  would  be  to  lose 
alVsense  ot  life  and  reality  in  Christ. 

But  let  us  try  to  approach  this  great  and  fundamental  fact  in 
the  history  of  our  redemption  really  from  God's  side.  Let  us 
try  to  realize  what  we  are  contemplating  when  we  are  rising  to 
the  contemplation  of  that  hope  for  man  which  was  in  God 
antecedent  to  the  atonement,  and  which  the  atonement  has 
brought  within  the  reach  of  our  spirits.  Let  us  see  the  love 
that  man  needs  as  in  God  before  it  has  come  forth  in  the 
atonement.  Let  us  see  the  Fatherly  heart  as  yet  unrevealed — 
waiting  to  be  revealed.  Let  us  contemplate  the  Son  as  coming 
forth_to_ reveal  it-  Let  us  distinguish  between  the  purpose  to 
reveal  the  Father's  heart  and  a  purpose  to  realise  any  pre- 
determined train  of  events.  Let  us  see,  as  that  which  is  to  be 
brought  to  pass,  not  certain  facts,  events,  or  circumstances 
thought  of  merely  as  such,  but  a  knowledge  of  the  heart  of  the 
Father  brought  within  reach  of  us  His  offspring, — destroyed  by 
the  lack  of  this  knowledge  but  to  whom  this  knowledge  will  be 
salvation.  Let  us  consider  in  this  view  the  Son  of  God  in 
humanity  bearing  upon  His  spirit  our  burden,  and  dealing  with 
the  Father  concerning  it ;  let  us  see  all  our  need  made  visible 
to  us  in  Christ's  feeling  of  it,  and  let  us  listen  to  the  cry  of  this 
need  as  ascending  to  the  Father  from  Christ  addressing  itself  to 
what  the  Father  feels  in  relation  to  that  need,  and  let  us  ask 
ourselves  how  but  as  the  answer  to  that  cry  could  that  in  the 
Father  which  answers  that  cry  have  been  made  known,  or  our 
need  and  that  in  the  Father  which  meets  our  need  have  been 
revealed  to  us  together?  It  is  theory  of  the  child  that  reveals 
the  mother's  heart.  It  is  the  cry  of  Sonship  in  humanity 
bearing  the  burden  of  humanity,  confessing  its  sin,  asking  for 
it  the  good  of  which  the  capacity  still  remained  to  it,  which 
being  responded  to  by  the  Father  has  revealed  the  Father's 
heart.  Without  taking  the  form  of  that  cry  the  mind  that  was 
in  Christ  would  have  failed  by  all  its  other  outgoings  to  declare 
the  Father's  name. 


204  THE  INTERCESSION  WHICH  WAS  AN  ELEMENT 


There  is  nothing  scenic  or  dramatic  in  this.  Were  such  its 
nature  it  would  be  valueless.  It  would  be  nothing,  and  could 
reveal  nothing.  But  no  feeling  in  the  Son.  no  desire,  no 
prayer,  is  other  than  what  is  natural  and  inevitable  to  holy  love 
so  placed.  The  response  of  the  Father  is  in  like  manner  a  real 
response,  and  therefore  the  nature  and  character  of  the  heart 
that  responds  is  seen  in  the  nature  and  character  of  that  to 
which  it  responds.  As  that  confession  of  man's  sin  is  justly 
|  due,  so  the  demand  for  it  in  God  is  real  as  well  as  His 
I  acceptance  of  it  is  gracious.  As  that  intercession  is  a  natural 
I  form  of  love  in  Him  that  intercedes,  the  response  to  that  inter- 
/  cession  is  a  natural  form  for  the  love  addressed  to  take — its 
living  and  real  outcoming.  To  say  that  what  ascends  to  God 
from  humanity  has  come  from  God,  that  God  has  Himself  in 
the  person  of  the  Son  furnished  humanity  with  the  pleading 
that  would  prevail  with  Him,  that  the  life  of  Sonship  is  already 
in  humanity  antecedent  to  the  atonement  which  it  makes— this 
in  no  way  affects  the  truth  of  the  atonement  as  indeed  the  due 
and  true  expiation  for  sin,  nor  the  truth  of  the  grounds  of  the 
Intercessor's  pleading  as  really  the  grounds  on  which  the  grace 
of  God  is  extended  to  men. 

We  may  indeed  go  further  back  :  we  may  contemplate  the 
mere  capacity  of  redemption  that  was  in  humanity  as  a  cry, 
— a  mute  cry,  but  which  still  entered  into  the  ear  and  heart  of 
God;  we  may  contemplate  the  gift  of  Christ  as  the  divine 
answer  to  this  cry ;  but  it  is  not  the  less  true  that  when  Christ 
under  our  burden  and  working  out  our  redemption  confesses 
before  the  Father  the  sin  of  man  and  presents  to  the  Father 
His  own  righteousness  as  the  divine  righteousness  for  man,  and 
the  Father  in  response  grants  to  men  remission  of  sins  and 
eternal  life, — that  confession  which  humanity^  could  not  have 
originated  but  which  the  Son  of  God  has  made  in  ifand  for  it. 
and  that  righteousness  which  humanity  could  not  itself  present, 
but  which  the  Son  of  God  has  presented  in  it  and  for  it,  are 
the  grounds  on  which  God  really  puts  His  own  acting  in  the 
whole  history  of  redemption. 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT  CONSIDERED  AS  PRAYER.  205 

It  is  the  tendency  to  deal  with  God  as  a  fate  and  with  the 
accomplishment  of  the  high    designs   of  His  grace    for   man 
simply  as  the  coming  to  pass  of  predetermined  events  which  is 
the  real  source  of  our  difficulty  in  regard  to  prayer  as  a  law  and 
power   in    the    kingdom    of  God;     whether   we    think    of    it 
contemplating  its  place  in  the  history  of  our  redemption  as  the 
intercession  of  Christ,  or  as  an  element  in  our  own  life  of  son- 
ship    through    Christ.      In    consequence    of    that    tendency, 
"  asking  things  according  to  the  will  of  God,"  comes  to  sound 
like  asking  God  to  do  what  He  intended  to  do, — a  manner  of 
prayer  for  which  we  have  no  light, — as  it  is  a  manner  of  prayer, 
indeed,   which  would  be  felt  to  be  superseded  by  that  very 
light  as  to  the  future  which  would  make  it  possible.     But  God 
is  not  revealed  to  our  faith  as  a  fate,  neither  is  His  will  set 
before  us  as  a  decree  of  destiny.     God  is  revealed  to  us  as  the 
living  God,  and  His  will  as  the  desire  and  choice  of  a  living 
heart,  which  presents  to  us  not  the  image  or  picture  of  a  pre- 
determined course  of  events  to  the  predestined  flow  of  which 
our  prayer  is  to  be  an  Amen,  but  a  moral  and  spiritual  choice 
in  relation  to  us  His  offspring  to  which  our  prayer  is  to  respond 
in  what  will  be  in  us  the  cry  of  a  moral  and  spiritual  choice. 
That  knowledge   of  the   Father  which    the  prayer  of  Christ 
implied — the  knowledge  of  the  Son  who  dwelleth  in  the  bosom 
of  the  Father — was  not  the  knowledge  of  a  certain  future,  pre- 
destined and  sure  to  be  accomplished,  but  was  the  knowledge 
of  the  unchanging  will  of  the  Father  concerning  man, — a  will 
which  in  all  rebellion  is  resisted,  in  all  obedience  of  love  is 
fulfilled.     If  we  are  able  to  see  and  realise  this  distinction  we 
shall  see  the  dealing  of  the  Son  with  the  Father  on  our  behalf 
as  that  response  to  the  mind  of  the  Father  in  relation  to  us 
which  in  our  participation   in  the  spirit  of  the  Son  is  to  be 
continued  and  perpetuated  in  our  own  prayers.     And,  it  seems 
to  me,  that  these  things  mutually  illustrate  each  other  to  us ;  I 
mean  our  own  prayers  in  the  spirit  of  sonship  and  the  great 
original  intercession  of  the  Son  on  behalf  of  all  humanity  which 
was  to  spread  itself  through  humanity  and  which  we  partake  in 


206  THE  INTERCESSION  WHICH  WAS  AN  ELEMENT 

as_a  part  of  the  eternal  life  which  we  have  in  the  Son  of  God. 
For  that  cry  for  things  according  to  the  Father's  will,— that  cry 
for  holiness,  and  truth,  and  love,  which  is  the  cry  of  Christ's 
Spirit  in  us,  and  which  is  not  repressed  or  discouraged  by  the 
knowledge  that  it  is  according  to  the  will  of  God,  as  if  therefore 
it  was  superfluous,  nay,  is  only  quickened  and  sustained  by  that 
knowledge,  may  throw  light  to  us  upon  the  infinite  intensity  of 
that_cry_as  in  Christ  on  behalf  of  all  humanity, — enabling  us  to 
understand  that  in  Him  it  was  infinitely  intense  just  because  of 
His  perfect  oneness  of  mind  with  the  Father  in  regard  to  what 
He  asked,  and  perfect  knowledge  of  that  will  of  the  Father 
according  to  which  the  cry  was.  While,  on  the  other  hand, 
nothing  is  such  a  help  against  all  temptation  to  deal  with  the 
living  God  as  with  a  fate,  and  with  His  will  as  a  decree  which 
we  are  passively  to  allow  to  take  its  course,  instead  of  putting 
forth  that  prayerful  trust  which  is  the  necessary  link  between 
His  will  for  us  and  its  fulfilment  in  us,  as  the  believing  medita- 
tion of  the  place  which  prayer  had  in  the  work  of  Christ  in 
accomplishing  our  redemption. 

And  it  is  not  merely  in  order  that  we  may  not  come  short  in 
our  realization  of  the  large  place  which  prayer  must  have  in  our 
personal  religion,  if  when  we  attempt  to  follow  God  as  dear 
children  we  would  really  walk  in  the  footsteps  of  the  Son  of 
God,  that  it  is  so  important  that  we  should  realise  the  part 
which  the  intercession  of  Christ  has  in  the  atonement.  Our 
doing  so  is,  I  would  venture  to  say,  even  more  needed  in 
reference  to  the  nature  ot  our  prayers,  and  that  we  may  be 
found  really  praying  according  to  the  will  of  God, — according  to 
the  light  of  the  gospel, — according  to  the  knowledge  that  the 
true  worshippers  worship  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  for  that  the 
Father  seeketh  such  to  worship  Him.  Small  as  the  amount  of 
prayer  is,  its  usual  character  is  a  still  sadder  subject  of  thought 
than  its  small  amount.  I  mean  its  being  so  much  a  dealing 
with  God  simply  as  a  Sovereign  Lord,  a  Governor,  and  Judge, 
and  so  little  a  dealing  with  Him  as  the  Father  of  our  spirits. 
There  is  much  feeling  that  "  power  belongeth  to  God  alone  " 


IN  THE  ATONEMENT  CONSIDERED  AS  PRAYER.  207 

combined  with  the  encouraging  persuasion  that  "  to  Him  also 
belongeth  mercy"  moving  to  prayer  and  sustaining  prayer, 
which  yet  is  not  enlightened  and  exalted  by  the  knowledge  of 
God  as  a  Father,  and  the  apprehension  of  our  true  well-being 
as  all  embraced  in  the  sonship  which  we  have  in  Christ. 
Reader,  let  me  ask  you,  do  you  pray  as  a  child  of  God  whose 
first  and  nearest  relationship  is  to  God  your  Father,  whose 
most  deeply  felt  interests  are  bound  up  in  that  relation  in  what 
lies  within  the  circle  of  that  relation  contemplated  in  itself? 
Do  you  pray  as  one  to  whom  the  mind  of  God  towards  you 
and  your  own  mind  towards  Him  are  the  most  important 
elements  of  existence,  and  whose  other  interests  in  existence 
are  as  outer  circles  around  this  central  interest, — so  that  you 
see  yourself,  and  your  family,  and  your  friends,  and  your 
country,  and  your  race,  with  the  eyes,  because  with  the  heart, 
of  one  who  "  loves  the  Lord  his  God  with  all  his  heart,  and 
mind,  and  soul,  and  strength  ?  "  Is  this  at  least  your  ideal  for 
yourself,  what  you  are  seeking  to  realise, — to  realise  for  its  own 
sake, — not  for  any  consequences  of  it  in  time  or  eternity?  for 
whatever  the  blessed  consequences  of  its  realisation  will  be, 
they  shall  be  far,  and  for  ever,  inferior  and  secondary  to  itself. 


208 


CHAPTER   X. 

THE   ATONEMENT,    AS    ILLUSTRATED    BY    THE    DETAILS    OF 
THE    SACRED    NARRATIVE. 


"O  EGARDING  the  atonement  as  the  development  of  the 
life  that  was  in  Christ  I  have  now  considered  its  nature 


in  the  light  of  that  life, — and  the  unity  of  a  life  has,  I  trust, 
been  felt  to  belong  to  the  exposition  offered.  But  the  life  of 
Christ   has   an   external    history  and    took   an    outward   form 


from  the  successive  circumstances  in  which  our  Lord  was 
placed,  from  the  manger  to  the  cross,  according  to  the  divine 
ordering  of  His  path.  And  while  this  history  can  only  be 
understood  in  the  light  of  that  inward  life  of  which  it  has  been 
the  outward  form,  the  contemplation  of  the  outward  form  must 
help  our  understanding  of  the  inward  life  ;  and  if  the  view  taken 
of  the  nature  of  the  atonement  be  the  true  view  must  both 
confirm  it  and  illustrate  it. 

We  are  thus  prepared  to  find  the  outward  course  of  life 
appointed  for  the  Son  of  God  as  that  in  which  He  was  to  fulfil 
the  purpose  of  doing  the  Father's  will  determined  by  the  divine 
wisdom  with  special  reference  to  that  purpose.  Another  con- 
dition, also,  we  expect  to  find  fulfilled  in  the  circumstances  in 
which  the  Son  is  seen  witnessing  for  the  Father,  viz.  that  they 
shall  accord  with  the  testimony  of  the  Father  to  the  Son.  The 
witnessing  of  the  Son  for  the.  Father  would  have  manifestly 
been  incomplete  as  to  us  without  the  Father's  seal  to  it.  But 
this  sealing  was  an  essential  part  of  the  divine  counsel, — not 


THE  ATONEMENT  ILLUSTRATED.  209 

only  that  outward  testimony,  however  solemn  and  authoritative, 
which  was  in  the  words  of  the  angel  to  Mary,  the  voice  from 
heaven  at  the  Lord's  baptism  by  John,  and  again  on  the  mount, 
but  that  also  to  which  these  special  testimonies  of  the  Father 
to  the  Son  in  humanity  direct  our  minds,  viz.  that  testimony  of 
the  Father  to  the  Son  in  the  Spirit  which  always  is,  and  out  of 
which  all  responsibility  for  faith  in  the  Son  of  God  arises^  being 
that  on  which  such  faith  must  ultimately  rest.  With  this  testi- 
mony of  the  Father  to  the  Son,  as  well  as  with  the  witnessing 
of  the  Son  for  the  Father,  the  divine  ordering  of  our  Lord's 
path  would  necessarily  accord  ;  so  that,  although  the  aspect  of 
that  path,  judged  according  to  the  flesh,  might  seem  in  contra- 
diction to  the  words,  "  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am 
well  pleased,"  seen  in  the  light  of  God  it  would  be  known  to 
harmonise  with  that  acknowledgment.  What  would  accord 
with  the  Father's  testimony  to  the  Son  must  manifestly  be 
one  with  what  would  accord  with  the  Son's  honouring  of  the 
Father  in  our  sight ;  so  that  we  have  not  really  here  two  condi- 
tions to  be  fulfilled,  but  one  only ;  nor  does  the  need-be 
that  there  should  be  fitting  scope  for  the  manifestation  of 
brotherhood  in  relation  to  men,  add  any  new  element,  seeing 
the  unity  of  sonship  towards  God  and  brotherhood  towards  men. 
But  it  is  important  that  we  approach  the  consideration  of  the 
course  of  our  Lord's  life,  realising  that  we  are  to  contemplate  it 
in  relation  equally  to  the  Father's  acknowledgment  of  the  Son, 
and  to  the  Son's  witnessing  for  the  Father, — "  No  man  knoweth 
who  the  Son  is,  but  the  Father  ;  and  who  the  Father  is,  but  the 
Son,  and  he  to  whom  the  Son  will  reveal  Him." 

This,  therefore,  is  the  aspect  in  which  we  are  to  contemplate 
the_  actual  history  of  the  work  of  redemption.  We  are  to  con- 
template it  as  the  Son's  witnessing  for  the  Father  by  the  mani- 
festation of  sonship  towards  God  and  brotherhood  towards 
men,  in  circumstances  which  divine  wisdom  ordained  with 
reference  to  the  perfection  of  that  manifestation,  and  which  we 
are  to  see  in  the  light  of  the  Father's  testimony  to  the  Son. 

As  our  Lord  "  increased  in  wisdom  and  stature,"  so  the 


2IO    THE  ATONEMENT,  AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE 

elements  of  the  atonement  gradually  developed  themselves  with 
the  gradual  development  of  His  humanity,  and  corresponding 
development  of  the  eternal  life  in  His  humanity.  The  sonship 
in  Him  was  always  perfect  sonship.  At  no  one  moment  could 
He  have  said  more  truly  than  at  another,  "  The  Son  doeth 
nothing  of  Himself;  but  whatsoever  things  the  Father  doeth, 
the  same  doeth  the  Son  likewise."  But  submitting  at  once, 
both  to  the  Father's  inward  guidance,  "  opening  His  ear  as  the 
learner,  morning  by  morning,"  and  to  His  outward  guidance, 
"  not  hiding  His  face  from  shame  and  spitting,"  Christ's  inward 
life  of  love  to  His  Father  and  love  to  His  brethren  was  con- 
stantly acted  upon  by  the  circumstances  appointed  for  Him, 
receiving  its  perfect  development  through  them  :  so  that,  tracing 


our  Lord's  life  as  thus  a  visible  contact  with  men  while  an 
invisible  abiding  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  and  endeavouring 
to  realise  the  bearing  and  operation  of  outward  things  upon 
His  inward  life,  we  may  expect  the  light  of  the  atonement  to 
shine  forth  to  us  with  increased  clearness,  as  the  light  of  that 
life  which  is  the  light  of  men. 

We  are  not  told  much  of  the  course  of  our  Lord's  life  before 
He  entered  on  His  public  ministry ;  we  may  say  we  have  its 
general  character  in  the  words,  He  "  increased  in  wisdom  and 
stature,  and  in  favour  with  God  and  man."  His  doing  the 
Father's  will,  His  following  God  as  a  dear  child,  had  then  that 
attraction  in  the  eyes  of  men  which  goodness  often  has  while  it 
commends  itself  to  men's  consciences  without  making  any 
positive  demand  upon  themselves.  And  this  record  concerning 
our  Lord, — that  at  this  time,  and  while  His  life  was  to  men's 
eyes  the  simple  filling  of  His  place  in  relation  to  Joseph  and 
Mary,  and  His  kindred  and  neighbours,  according  to  the  perfect 
form  of  childhood  and  youth  in  a  young  Hebrew,  He  had 
the  acknowledgment  of  human  favour, — should  put  us  on  our 
guard  against  hastily  concluding  that  the  favour  of  men  may 
not  even  now,  in  certain  circumstances,  follow  the  favour  of 
God. 

When,  however,  our  Lord  entered  on  His  public  ministry, 


DETAILS  OF  THE  SACRED  NARRATIVE.        2II 

and  the  words  which  He  spake  and  the  miracles  which  He 
wrought  constrained  men  to  attend  to  and  consider  the  demand 
which  He  made  for  His  Father,  and  the  condemnation  on  men 
which  that  righteous  demand  implied, — we  see  the  darkness 
soon  disturbed  by  the  light,  and  beginning  to  manifest  its 
enmity  to  the  light.  Yet  neither  was  this  universal — and  not 
only  did  some  attach  themselves  to  Him  as  immediate  disciples 
and  followers,  but  many  more  rejoiced  in  His  teaching ;  and 
the  response  which  His  testimony  had  in  their  hearts  com- 
manded an  outward  acknowledgment  of  Him,  which  indeed 
was  so  general  and  so  strong,  that  those  in  whom  enmity  was 
most  moved  were  restrained  as  to  the  manifestation  of  their  ill 
will  by  "  the  fear  of  the  people."  How  superficial  the  hearing 
was  with  which  the  great  multitudes  that  followed  Him  listened 
to  His  words,  we  know,  both  from  His  own  care  to  warn  them 
of  the  cost  of  discipleship,  (Luke  xiv.  25-33)  which  He  saw 
they  were  not  counting,  and  from  the  subsequent  history  of  that 
favour,  when  the  cry  "  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David  "  so  soon 
gave  place  to  the  cry  "  Crucify  Him,  crucify  Him."  But  doubt- 
less between  those  who,  as  Peter  says  of  himself  and  the  rest, 
"  forsook  all  and  followed  Him,"  and  those  who  early  set  them- 
selves against  Him,  knowing  that  His  word  condemned  them, 
and  that  the  acceptance  of  His  teaching  with  the  people  would 
be  the  subverting  of  their  own  consequence  and  influence,  there 
were  many  shades  of  feeling, — the  internal  witness  in  men's 
hearts  to  the  outward  word  of  Him  who  spake  as  never  man 
spake,  being  dealt  with  in  many  different  measures  of  reverence 
and  rebellion.  On  the  whole,  however,  for  a  time  the  power 
of  evil  came  forth  but  in  measure  ;  and  though  He  could  early 
say,  "I  honour  my  Father,  and  ye  do  dishonour  me,"  and 
though  so  much  of  even  what  was  of  another  character  was  to 
Him  who  knew  what  was  in  man  but  a  show  of  good  which  did 
not  deceive  Him,  yet  it  was  but  gradually  and  towards  the  close 
that  He  had  to  taste  in  all  its  bitterness  that  enmity  to  God  to 
which  He  was  exposing  Himself  in  coming  to  men  in  His 
Father's  name.    The  public  ministry  of  the  Lord,  with  its  mixed 


212    THE  ATONEMENT,  AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE 


^A 


character  of  favour  and  dishonour,  of  loud  acclamations  of 
those  who  at  the  least  believed  Him  to  be  a  teacher  sent  from 
God,  and  secret  machinations  of  enemies  whose  malice  could 
not  calculate  enough  on  sympathy  to  make  its  expression  safe, 
was  ordered  of  God  to  continue  for  a  time  ;  and  "  no  man 
could  lay  hands  on  Him,  for  His  hour  was  not  yet  come." 

It  was,  however,  but  a  brief  time,  much  briefer  than  the  pre- 
vious period  of  private  life  in  which  the  favour  of  men  was  con- 
joined with  the  favour  of  God  ;  and  it  was  followed  by  another 
distinctly  marked  period,  of  which  the  character  is  the  patient 
endurance  of  all  the  full  and  perfected  development  of  the 
enmity  which  the  faithfulness  of  the  previous  testimony  for  the 
Father's  name  had  awakened.  This  last  is  much  the  briefest 
division  of  our  Lord's  life  on  earth ;  and  its  darkest  por- 
tion is  to  be  measured  by  days,  or  rather  by  hours :  as  if  He 
who  spared  not  His  own  Son,  but  gave  Him  to  the  death  for 
us,  yet  spared  Him  as  much  as  possible,  making  the  bitterest 
portion  the  briefest. 

We  cannot  doubt  the  importance  of  that  portion  of  the  ful- 
filment of  the  purpose,  "  Lo  I  come  to  do  thy  will,"  which  con- 
stitutes the  private  life  of  our  Lord,  antecedent  to  His  entering 
upon  His  public  ministry.  The  scantiness  of  the  record  is  no 
reason  for  doing  so.  We  know  how  that  scantiness  has  been 
attempted  to  be  compensated  for  by  fictitious  narratives,  in- 
tended to  meet  the  natural  desire  to  know  more  of  what  was 
so  large  a  proportion  of  our  Lord's  whole  life  on  earth.  But 
this  has  been  a  part  of  the  error  of  not  seeing  that  that  life 
itself  as  it  abides  in  Him  who  lived  it  and  not  the  mere  written 
record  of  that  life  is  our  unsearchable  riches  which  we  have  in 
Christ.  When  the  promise  is  fulfilled  to  us,  that  the  Comforter 
would  take  of  that  which  is  Christ's,  and  shew  it  unto  us, 
this  acting  of  the  Comforter  is  not  limited  to  what  is  recorded. 
He  takes  from  the  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge,  stored 
up  for  all  humanity  in  the  humanity  of  the  Son  of  God, — re- 
vealing the  life  of  Him  who  "  was  in  all  points  tempted  like  as 
we  are,  yet  without  sin,"  in  its  relation  to  our  individual  need. 


DETAILS  OF  THE  SACRED  NARRATIVE.        213 

with  that  minuteness  of  application  of  which  that  life,  thus 
revealed  to  us  in  the  Spirit,  is  capable,  but  of  which  no  written 
record  could  be  capable.  How  many  a  little  child,  remember- 
ing that  Jesus  was  once  a  little  child,  and  grew  in  wisdom  and 
in  stature,  and  in  favour  with  God  and  man,  and  looking  to 
Him  for  help  according  to  the  need  felt  in  seeking  to  follow 
God  as  a  dear  child,  and  be  in  obedience  to  those  related  to 
him  as  Joseph  and  Mary  were  to  the  child  Jesus,  has  found  his 
trust  met,  and  felt  no  want  of  "a  gospel  of  the  infancy  of 
Jesus."  Let  the  divine  favour,  testified  as  resting  upon  that 
first  portion  of  our  Lord's  life,  sanctify  to  our  hopes  private 
life, — the  large  proportion  of  the  life  of  all,  the  whole 
of  the  life  of  most ;  and  let  us  see  that  on  which  that 
favour  rested,  as  a  part  of  the  eternal  life  given  to  us  in  the 
Son  of  God,  which  is  to  be  God's  glory  in  us  in  private  life,  a 
store  from  which  to  receive  all  that  pertains  to  life  and 
godliness  as  we  are  individual  Christians, — as  truly  as  His 
life  as  a  preacher  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  is  that  to  a  special 
participation  in  which  those  who  are  called  in  this  to  walk 
in  His  steps,  are  to  look, — as  truly  as  His  witnessing  before 
Pontius  Pilate  a  good  confession,  is  for  strength  according  to 
their  need,  to  those  who  are  called  to  suffer  as  martyrs  for  His 
name. 

As  to  our  Lord's  personal  ministry,  its  distinguishing  charac- 
ter is  to  be  seen  in  this,  that  that  ministry  was  the  outcoming  of 
the  life  of  sonship.  By  this  character  of  a  life  was  His  ministry 
distinguished  from  that  of  all  who  were  only  "  teachers  sent 
from  God."  In  this  respect  was  it  that  He  "  spake  as  never 
man  spake."  What  He  spake,  as  what  He  did,  was  a  part  of 
what  He  was.  His  words  were  spirit  and  life,  and  not  a  mere 
testimony  concerning  life.  As  now  in  the  inner  man  of  our  being, 
when  the  Son  of  God  is  known  as  present  in  us  claiming  lord- 
ship over  our  spirits,  there  is  a  testimony  of  the  Father  to  the 
Son  in  the  Spirit,  which  in  calling  Jesus  Lord  we  are  welcoming, 
so  we  cannotdoubt  that  then  in  Judea  the  man  Jesus,  in  His 
living  witnessing  as  the  Son  for  the  Father,  had  a  testimony 


214    THE  ATONEMENT,  AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE 

of  the  Father  borne  to  Him,  which  men  heard  according  as 
tlie^Twelcomed  the  teaching  of  God.  This  testimony  was  a 
testimony  to  what  He  was,  to  the  life  that  was  shining  forth 
in  His  deeds  and  words.  And  the  unconscious  sense  of  this 
has  manifestly  gone  beyond  the  intelligent  recognition  of  it ; 
so  that  we  find  men  unable  to  resist  the  authority  and  power 
with  which  He  spake,  even  though  not  beholding,  as  the  dis- 
ciple did,  "  His  glory  as  the  glory  of  the  Only-begotten  of  the 
Father." 

Unless  we  realise  this  and  that  that  was  presented  to  men's 
faith,  if  they  could  receive  it,  which  pertained  to  one  who  could 
say,  in  reference  to  His  own  conscious  life,  "I  am  the  light  of 
the  world,"  we  cannot  enter  into  that  immediate  presenting  to 
men  of  what  He  Himself  was  as  the  Gospel,  which  we  have 
seen  in  the  words,  "  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are 
heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest.  Learn  of  me  ;  for  I  am 
meek  and  lowly  in  heart  :  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your 
souls."  And  in  that  testimony  as  to  who  are  "  blessed,"  with 
which  the  discourse  which  we  call  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
opens,  we  are  to  recognise  the  same  thing.  All  these  declara- 
tions as  to  the  blessedness  of  the  several  conditions  of  spirit 
which  our  Lord  there  specifies  are  rays  of  the  light  of  the  life 
that  was  in  Him ;  and  will  be  such  to  us,  being  heard  as  utter- 
ances of  that  life, — utterances  of  Christ's  own  consciousness  in 
humanity,  a  part  of  His  confessing  the  Father  before  men, 
being  testimonies  in  humanity  to  the  blessedness  of  sonship  in 
doing  the  Father's  will. 

Accordingly  the  whole  discourse  keeps  the  Father  before 
us.  The  foundation  of  every  counsel  is  our^filial  relation 
to  God.  A]Hs  in  harmony  with  the  prayer  which  He  teaches, 
patting  the  words,  "  Our  Father,"  in  our  lips,  and  adding, 
as  the  first  petitions  which  we  are  to  present,  the  expression  of 
an  interest  in  the  Father's  "  name  "  and  "kingdom  "  and  "will," 
—an  interest  which,  if  these  petitions  are  to  proceed  from 
unfeigned  lips,  must  imply  our  participation  in  that  life  of  son- 
ship  which  is  presented  to  us  in  Him  who  teaches  usjsojxrpray. 


DETAILS  OF  THE  SACRED  NARRATIVE.        215 

Nor  are  we  to  leave  out  of  account,  in  contemplating  our 
Lord's  ministry  as  giving  glory  to  the  Father  in  being  mani- 
fested sonship,  that  not  only  was  this  in  our  nature  and  in  our 
circumstances,  but  that  the  consciousness  of  its  being  so,  and 
the  full  knowledge  of  the  amount  of  the  demand  made  on  us 
when  called  to  learn  of  Him,  is  distinctly  expressed, — the 
knowledge  that  to  call  on  us  to  follow  Him,  is  to  call  upon  us  to 
take  up  the  cross.  When  we  in  very  truth  betake  ourselves  to 
Him,  as  to  that  high-priest  who  is  "touched  with  the  feeling  of 
our  infirmities,  and  was  in  all  points  tempted  like  as  we 
are,  yet  without  sin,"  and  who  in  that  He  Himself  hath  suf- 
fered, being  tempted,  is  able  to  succour  us  when  we  are 
tempted,  we  then  learn  to  value  the  tone  of  full  conscious 
entering  into  the  amount  of  the  demand  which  He  makes  upon 
men  in  calling  upon  them  to  hate  their  life  in  this  world  which 
pervades  our  Lord's  teaching  equally  with  the  consciousness  of 
being  Himself  living  that  life  in  the  Father's  favour  which  He 
is  commending. 

But  that  life  of  which  our  Lord's  ministry  was  thus  the  living 
outcoming,  in  the  consciousness  of  which  He  testified  who  are 
blessed,  in  the  consciousness  of  which  He  declared  to  the  weary 
and  heavy  laden  what  is  the  true  rest, — speaking  to  us  also  in 
all  this  as  our  very  brother, — that  life  needed,  in  order  to  its 
perfect  development,  as  the  light  of  life  to  us,  to  have  the  depth 
of  its  root  in  God — its  power  to  overcome  the  world — the 
nature  of  its  strength  and  victory — the  weight  of  the  cross 
which  it  bore  in  suffering  flesh — revealed,  as  even  the  living 
teaching  of  the  Lord's  ministry  did  not  reveal  it.  There- 
fore was  that  hour  and  power  of  darkness  permitted  which 
the  closing  period  of  our  Lord's  course  presents  in  which 
sonship  towards  the  Father  and  brotherhood  towards  man  have 
had  their  nature  manifested  and  their  power  displayed  to  the 
utmost. 

As  the  time  drew  near  the  Lord  prepared  the  disciples  for 
this  hour  and  power  of  darkness.  "And  Jesus  going  up  to 
Jerusalem,  took  the  twelve  disciples  apart  in  the  way  and  said 


216    THE  ATONEMENT,  AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE 

unto  them,  Behold,  we  go  up  to  Jerusalem  ;  and  the  Son  of 
man  shall  be  betrayed  unto  the  chief  priests  and  unto  the 
scribes,  and  they  shall  condemn  Him  to  death,  and  shall  deliver 
Him  to  the  Gentiles  to  mock,  and  to  scourge,  and  to  crucify 
Him  ;  and  the  third  day  He  shall  rise  again."  (Matt.  xx.  17, 
18,  19.)  His  own  feelings  in  looking  forward  to  what,  as 
to  its  outward  form,  He  thus  foretold,  were  such  as  to  impress 
their  minds  with  the  most  solemn  anticipations,  and  His  words 
then,  so  far  as  they  are  recorded,  remain  to  us  a  portion  of 
Scripture  on  which  we  meditate  as  bringing  us  near  to  a  region 
of  feeling  into  which  we  scarcely  dare  to  venture ;  and  yet 
these  expressions  of  mental  agony  are  recorded  for  our  instruc- 
tion as  belonging  to  that  life  of  Christ  which  is  the  light  of  life 
to  us. 

"  I  have  a  baptism  to  be  baptised  with ;  and  how  am  I 
straitened  till  it  be  accomplished."  (Luke  xii.  50.)  "  Now  is 
my  soul  troubled ;  save  me  from  this  hour :  but  for  this  cause 
came  I  unto  this  hour.  Father,  glorify  thy  name."  (John  xii.  27.) 
And  even  after  the  conclusion  which  the  words  "For  this  cause 
came  I  to  this  hour"  seem  to  express,  when  the  awful  hour  was 
close  at  hand,  it  again  became  the  subject  of  earnest  pleading 
with  the  Father, — pleading,  the  earnestness  of  which,  while  it 
reveals  to  us  the  measure  of  the  apprehended  bitterness  of  the 
1  cup,  and  terror  of  the  hour  to  which  it  refers,  makes  a  demand 
upon  our  faith  as  to  the  reality  of  life  which  was  in  our  Lord's 
prayers,  and  how  truly,  in  dealing  with  the  Father,  He  dealt 
with  a  living  will  and  heart,  and  not  with  a  fate,  which  blessed 
are  those  who  are  able  truly  and  fully  to  respond  to.  "  And 
they  came  to  a  place  which  was  named  Gethsemane :  and  He 
saith  to  His  disciples,  Sit  ye  here,  while  I  shall  pray.  And  He 
taketh  with  Him  Peter  and  James  and  John,  and  began  to 
be  sore  amazed,  and  to  be  very  heavy ;  and  saith  unto  them, 
My  soul  is  exceeding  sorrowful  unto  death  :  tarry  ye  here, 
and  watch.  And  He  went  forward  a  little,  and  fell  on  the 
ground,  and  prayed  that,  if  it  were  possible,  the  hour  might  pass 
from  Him.     And  He  said,  Abba,  Father,  all  things  are  possible 


DETAILS  OF  THE  SACRED  NARRATIVE.        217 

unto  thee  j  take  away  this  cup  from  me,  nevertheless  not  what 
I  will,  but  what  thou  wilt."  (Mark  xiv.  33 — 36.)  "And  being 
in  an  agony  He  prayed  more  earnestly;  and  His  sweat  was 
as  it  were  great  drops  of  blood  falling  down  to  the  ground." 
(Luke  xxii.  44.) 

In  this  awfully  intense  prayer  we  have  to  mark  its  alternative 
nature,  and  that  the  latter  part  was  as  truly  prayer  as  the 
former:  the  former  uttering  the  true  and  natural  desire  to  which 
He  was  conscious  as  contemplating  that  which  was  before  Him 
in  the  weakness  and  capacity  of  suffering  proper  to  suffering 
flesh ;  the  latter  uttering  the  desire  of  the  spirit  of  sonship, 
being  that  which  was  deepest,  and  to  which  the  other,  while 
consciously  realized,  was  perfectly  subordinated. 

After  being  offered  the  third  time,  our  Lord's  prayer  was 
answered,  and  the  mind  of  the  Father,  which  was  the  response  to 
His  cry,  was  revealed  to  Him  in  the  Spirit.  He  was  not  to  be 
spared  the  dreaded  hour.  The  cup  was  not  to  pass  from  Him; 
and  therefore,  in  that  truth  of  sonship  in  which  He  had  said, 
"  Nevertheless  not  as  I  will,  but  as  thou  wilt,"  the  Father's  will 
was  welcomed,  the  bitter  cup  was  received  from  the  Father's 
hand  as  the  Father's  hand,  and  in  the  strength  of  sonship  the 
Lord  drank  it.  "And  He  cometh  the  third  time,  and  saith 
unto  them,  Sleep  on  now,  and  take  your  rest :  it  is  enough,  the 
hour  is  come;  behold,  the  Son  of  man  is  betrayed  into  the  hands  of 
sinners.  And  ifnmediately,  while  He  yet  spake,  cometh  Judas 
one  of  the  twelve,  and  with  him  a  great  multitude  with 
swords  and  staves,  from  the  chief  priests  and  the  scribes  and 
the  elders."  (Mark  xiv.  41,  43.)  uThen  Simon  Peter  having 
a  sword,  drew  it,  and  smote  the  high  priest's  servant,  and  cut 
off  his  right  ear.  Then  said  Jesus  unto  Peter,  Put  up  thy 
sword  into  the  sheath  :  the  cup  which  my  Father  hath  given  me 
to  drink,  shall  I  not  drink  it  ?  "  To  those  who  had  come  with 
Judas  He  said,  "  When  I  was  daily  with  you  in  the  temple,  ye 
stretched  forth  no  hands  against  me  :  but  this  is  your  hour,  and 
the  power  of  darkness"     (Luke  xxii.  53.) 

The  precise  point  of  time  at  which  the  anticipated  hour  and 


2i8  THE  ATONEMENT  ILLUSTRATED. 

power  of  darkness  had  its  commencement  is  thus  clearly  in- 
dicated,— the  moment  in  which  the  cup,  in  reference  to  which 
He  had  prayed,  was  put  into  our  Lord's  hand, — the  moment  at 
which  the  baptism  began  as  to  which  He  was  straitened  until  it 
should  be  accomplished.  And  I  ask  attention  to  this,  because 
the  record  clearly  separates  between  the  actual  experience 
which  these  expressions,  "hour," — "cup," — "baptism,"  refer  to, 
and  the  agony  in  the  garden  in  which  that  experience  was  only 
anticipated,  being  still  the  subject  of  the  prayer,  if  it  were 
possible,  that  it  should  not  be,  as  well  as  of  the  prayer  that  if 
the  Father  so  willed,  it  should  be. 

The  history  of  the  hour  and  power  of  darkness,  now  come, 
follows,  and  is  given  with  a  fulness  of  detail  commensurate  with 
its  importance ;  while  it  is  widely  separated  from  all  recorded 
suffering  of  man  from  man  by  the  preternatural  circumstances 
that  accompanied  it ;  circumstances  which,  in  their  awfulness, 
accorded  with  that  relation  which  the  sufferings  of  the  sufferer 
bore  to  the  sin  of  man;  yet  which,  in  their  connexion  with 
what  was  visible  of  Christ's  bearing  under  His  sufferings,  had 
that  character  impressed  upon  them  which  drew  from  the 
Roman  centurion  the  acknowledgment,  "Truly  this  was  the  Son 
of  God." 


219 


CHAPTER    XL 

HOW  WE  ARE  TO  CONCEIVE  OF  THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST, 
DURING  THAT  CLOSING  PERIOD  OF  WHICH  SUFFERING  WAS 
THE   DISTINCTIVE   CHARACTER. 

HP  HE  sufferings  of  Christ  during  the  hour  and  power  of  dark- 
ness  have  been  dealt  with  in  two  quite  opposite  ways. 

I.  They  have  been  regarded  in  their  simply  physical  aspect ; 
and  aid  to  the  imagination  and  the  heart  in  realising  their 
terrible  amount  has  been  eagerly  sought  in  pictured  representa- 
tions or  picturing  words ;  and  thus  a  lively  feeling  of  the  pain 
endured  by  our  blessed  Lord  under  the  hands  of  wicked  men 
has  been  cherished  as  a  help  in  measuring  the  evil  of  our  sins 
and  our  obligations  to  the  Saviour.  I  am  not  afraid  to  regard 
all  that  was  attained  of  knowledge  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ  in 
this  way  as  only  a  knowing  Christ  after  the  flesh,  and  therefore 
what  had  no  virtue  to  accomplish  any  spiritual  dtvelopment  in 
men, — no  virtue  to  impart  a  true  knowledge  of  sin,  or  to  raise 
the  spirits  of  men  into  the  light  of  what  our  sins  are  in  the  sight 
of  God, — what  they  are  to  the  heart  of  God.  Feelings  of  a 
strong  and  solemn,  as  well  as  tender  character,  have,  doubtless, 
been  thus  cherished ;  and  doubtless,  the  element  of  gratitude 
has  been  present :  yet  there  was  not,  for  there  could  not  be,  in 
images  of  physical  suffering  anything  of  the  nature  of  spiritual 
light, — however  such  light  may  have  been  present  along  with 
them,  being  received  otherwise. 

II.  But  there  has  been  manifested  also,  and  this  especially 


220  HOW  WE  ARE  TO  CONCEIVE  OF 

recently,  a  tendency  to  deal  with  the  detailed  sufferings  of 
Christ,  as  these  were  endured  at  the  hands  of  wicked  men.  in 
the  quite  opposite  way  of  making  as  little  account  of  them  as 
possible ;  I  do  not  mean  denying  their  reality, — denying  that 
our  Lord's  flesh  was  suffering  flesh, — but  rashly  admitting  the 
justness  of  a  comparison  of  them  with  other  cases  of  suffering 
inflicted  by  man  on  man. 

Of  such  other  cases  it  is  not  difficult  to  find  many  recorded 
that  would  bear  the  comparison ;  cases  in  which  the  cruellest 
tortures  have  been  submitted  to  with  such  fortitude  and  patience 
of  endurance  as,  if  this  way  of  viewing  the  subject  had  been 
admissible,  would  excuse  the  sneer  of  the  infidel.  Indeed, 
dealing  with  the  sufferings  of  the  Saviour  on  this  principle, 
those  who  have  done  so  have  escaped  from  justifying  that 
infidel  sneer  only  by  referring  the  language  of  our  Lord,  in 
relation  to  the  cup  given  Him  to  drink,  to  an  apprehension  of 
what  the  cup  contained,  altogether  unrelated  to  His  being 
delivered  into  the  hands  of  sinful  men.  Nay,  because  of  its 
seeming  to  shut  us  up  to  the  view  which  they  have  taken  of 
what  that  cup  contained,  viz.  that  it  was  filled  with  the  wrath  of 
God,  the  concession  has  been  willingly  made  of  the  alleged 
disproportion  between  our  Lord's  agony  in  the  Garden  of 
Gethsemane  in  looking  forward  to  the  coming  hour  and  power 
of  darkness,  and  those  sufferings  which  the  history  of  that  hour 
records. 

And  here  let  me  say  that  I  entirely  feel  that  our  Lord's 
physical  sufferings,  viewed  simply  as  physical  sufferings  and 
without  relation  to  the  mind  that  was  in  the  sufferer,  could 
not  adequately  explain  the  awful  intensity  of  the  feelings  which 
accompanied  His  Prayer  in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  apart  altogether  from  the  insuperable  objec- 
tion that  presents  itself  on  other  grounds  to  the  conception 
that  the  cup  which  was  the  subject  of  Christ's  prayer  contained 
the  Father's  wrath,  it  seems  impossible,  without  putting  aside 
the  record,  not  to  connect  that  cup  with  these  minutely  detailed 
sufferings,  foretold,  as  they  had  been,  to  the  disciples  on  the 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST.  221 

way  up  to  Jerusalem,  and  having  their  commencement  imme- 
diately after  the  answer  of  His  prayer  in  the  garden  was 
revealed  to  the  Lord ;  being  also,  as  we  have  seen,  met  and 
submitted  to  by  Him  with  words  which  identified  them  with 
the  cup  as  to  which  He  had  prayed. 

While  John  records  the  words  already  quoted  as  addressed 
to  Peter,  "  The  cup  which  my  Father  gives  me  to  drink  shall  I 
not  drink  it?"  Matthew  gives  these — "  Thinkest  thou  that  I 
cannot  now  pray  to  my  Father  and  He  shall  presently  give  me 
more  than  twelve  legions  of  angels?"  words  which,  as  well 
as  all  else,  suggest,  not  a  wrath  coming  forth  from  the  Father, 
but  a  power  of  evil  which  the  Father  permitted  to  have  its 
course.  We  cannot  indeed  doubt  what  the  impression  on  the 
disciples  as  to  that  to  which  their  Lord  was  subjected  must 
have  been  ;  and  accordingly,  after  our  Lord's  resurrection,  in 
that  interview  of  touching  tenderness  with  the  two  disciples  on 
the  way  to  Emmaus,  when  he  joined  Himself  to  them  and 
said,  "What  manner  of  communications  are  these  which  ye 
have  one  to  another,  as  ye  walk,  and  are  sad" — their  sad 
thoughts  were  "concerning  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  which  was  a 
prophet  mighty  in  deed  and  word  before  God  and  all  the 
people  :  and  how  the  chief  priests  and  our  rulers  delivered 
Him  to  death,  and  have  crucified  Him."  On  these  events 
were  their  minds  going  back,  and  on  these  events  did  He  give 
them  light.  "  O  fools,  and  slow  of  heart  to  believe  all  the 
prophets  have  spoken  :  ought  not  Christ  to  have  suffered  these 
things,  and  to  enter  into  His  glory  ?  And  beginning  at  Moses 
and  all  the  prophets,  He  expounded  to  them  in  all  the  Scriptures 
the  things  concerning  Himself."  (Luke  xxiv.  17,  19,  20,  25, 
26,  27.) 

But  both  the  errors  now  noticed, — the  minute  dwelling  on 
the  physical  suffering  as  such  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the 
other  hand,  the  turning  away  from  it  altogether,  for  the  expla- 
nation of  the  intensity  of  our  Lord's  agony  in  the  garden,  and 
seeking  that  explanation  in  the  assumption  that  the  wrath  of 
the  Father  was  the  bitterness  of  the  cup  given  to  the  Son, — 


■+ 


222  HOW  WE  ARE  TO  CONCEIVE  OF 

both  these  very  opposite  errors  have  alike  originated  in  the 
root  error  of  regarding  our  Lord's  sufferings  as_penal,  and  so 
being  occupied  with  their  aspect  as^  sufferings  merely,  when  they 
were  truly  a  moral  and  spiritual  sacrifice,  towhlch  the  sufferings 
were  related  only  as  involved  in  the  fulness  and  perfection  of 
the  sacrifice. 

In  St.  Matthew  xvi.  21,  we  have  the  record  of  an  intimation 
to  the  disciples  of  the  sufferings  to  which  the  Lord  looked 
forward,  earlier  than  that  quoted  above.  And  both  the  out- 
burst of  natural  feeling  in  Peter  at  the  thought  of  his  Master's 
suffering  such  things,  and  our  Lord's  rebuke  that  in  so  feeling 
he  savoured  not  the  things  that  be  of  God  but  the  things  that 
be  of  men,  connected  with  the  teaching  that  is  immediately 
added, — "  Then  said  Jesus  unto  them,  If  any  man  will  come 
after  me,  let  him  deny  himself,  and  take  up  his  cross,  and 
follow  me  :  for  whosoever  will  save  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and 
whosoever  will  lose  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it" — illustrate 
to  us  the  relation  of  the  sufferings  foretold  to  the  life  which  the 
Son  of  God  was  presenting  to  the  faith  of  the  disciples,  and  to 
the  fellowship  of  which  He  sought  to  raise  their  desires  and 
their  hopes. 

The  later  occasion  of  His  speaking  of  His  anticipated  suffer- 
ings to  His  disciples  already  quoted  is  also  marked  by  an 
incident  which  is  in  its  teaching  to  us  entirely  to  the  same 
effect,  I  mean  the  request  of  the  two  sons  of  Zebedee.  They, 
with  Peter,  were  the  three  privileged  to  be  present  with  our 
Lord  during  His  agony  of  prayer  in  the  garden  ;  as  they  had 
also  been  to  be  with  Him  on  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration, 
when  "  as  He  prayed,  the  fashion  of  His  countenance  was 
altered,  and  His  raiment  was  white  and  glistering.  And  behold 
there  talked  with  Him  two  men,  which  were  Moses  and  Elias, 
who  appeared  in  glory,  and  spake  of  His  decease  which  He 
should  accomplish  at  Jerusalem."  Whether  the  scene  on  the 
Mount,  along  with  the  words,  with  which  their  Lord's  intimation 
of  His  approaching  suffering  had  concluded, — "  And  the  third 
day  He  shall  rise  again," — though  not  fully  understood,  had 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST.  223 

carried  their  thoughts  at  once  beyond  the  sufferings  to  the 
glory  that  should  follow,  and  so  moved  the  desire  which  the 
request  to  "  sit  the  one  on  His  right  hand,  the  other  on  His 
left  in  His  kingdom,"  expressed,  we  know  not ;  but  nothing  can 
be  more  conclusive  as  to  the  relation — the  abiding  relation  of 
the  sufferings  which  the  Lord  foretold  to  the  development  of 
the  life  that  was  in  Him,  than  His  reply  to  this  request.  First, 
in  accordance  with  the  awful  impression  of  what  He  looked 
forward  to  which  it  was  His  intention  to  convey,  He  says. 
"  Ye  know  not  what  ye  ask.  Are  ye  able  to  drink  of  the  cup 
that  I  shall  drink  of,  and  to  be  baptised  with  the  baptism  that 
T  am  baptised  with  ? "  But  when  they  reply,  "  We  are  able," 
He  adds  "  Ye  shall  drink  indeed  of  my  cup,  and  be  baptised 
with  the  baptism  that  I  am  baptised  with  :"  plainly  preparing 
them  for  that  fellowship  in  His  anticipated  sufferings  which 
His  words  on  the  former  occasion,  as  to  the  necessity  of  "  bear- 
ing His  cross,"  had  equally  implied. 

For,  indeed,  although  this  period  of  which  the  distinctive 
character  is  suffering  in  connexion  with  a  perniitted  hour  and 
power  of  darkness,  is  so  clearly  marked  off  to  us  ;  yet  had  the 
disciples  been,  as  we  have  seen,  before  this  time  taught  to  see 
their  Lord  as  bearing  the  cross,  and  to  understand  that  they 
were  called  to  take  up  the  cross  and  follow  Him.  And  now, 
when  they  were  taught  to  associate  a  deeper  meaning  than  it 
had  yet  to  them,  with  their  Lord's  cross,  it  was  still  as  that 
cross  which  they  would  have  themselves  to  bear  in  following 
their  Lord  that  they  were  to  contemplate  it 

The  continuity  of  the  life  of  sonship,  therefore,  is  unbroken  in 
the  transition  to  this  third  and  last  period,  the  character  of  the 
Father's  dealing  with  the  Son  as  what  related  to  the  develop- 
ment of  that  life  is  unchanged,  and  the  interest  of  the  progress 
of  that  development  to  us  as  the  development  of  the  life  given 
to  us  in  the  Son  of  God,  and  which  we  are  ourselves  to  partake 
in,  is  unaltered.  We  are  to  meditate  on  the  details  of  our 
Lord's  sufferings  with  that  personal  reference  to  ourselves,  and, 
therefore,  with  that  expectation  of  light  as  to  their  nature,  which 


224  H0W  WE  ARE  T0  CONCEIVE  OF 

is  justified  by  the  words,  "  Ye  shall  dri?ik  indeed  of  my  cup,  and 
be  baptised  with  the  baptis7n  that  I  am  baptised  with?  If  we 
ponder  these  words  well,  they  will  indeed  give  a  peculiar 
character  to  our  consideration  of  the  cup  given  the  Son  of  God 
to  drink  ;  and  realising  in  their  light  something  of  the  depth 
of  our  calling  as  a  call  to  fellowship  in  Christ's  sufferings, — as 
in  the  light  of  the  transfiguration  we  may  realise  something  of 
the  high  hope  set  before  us, — we  shall,  in  our  ignorance  of  the 
forms  of  trial  which  our  Father's  love  may  yet  take  in  accom- 
plishing in  us  the  good  pleasure  of  His  goodness,  feel  it  needful 
to  fall  back,  as  we  may  peacefully  do,  on  the  faith  that  "  the 
height  and  the  depth  and  the  breadth  and  the  length  of  the 
love  of  God  in  Christ  passeth  knowledge  ; "  for  that  its  end  is, 
that  we  may  be  "  filled  with  the  fulness  of  God." 

The  faithfulness  of  our  Lord's  personal  ministry  and  the  un- 
clouded light  of  His  life  had  been  already  the  realisation  in 
humanity  of  a  loving  trust  in  the  Father  and  a  forgiveness 
towards  men,  which  were  a  victory  of  sonship  and  brotherhood 
in  the  sight  of  God  of  great  price.  But  the  extent  to  which 
sonship  could  trust  the  Father,  the  extent  to  which  the  true 
brother  could  exercise  forgiving  love,  had  to  be  further 
manifested, — or,  rather,  this  life  of  love  had  to  be  further 
developed ;  and  if  we  enter  into  the  reason  for  Christ's  suffer- 
ing at  all  through  being  exposed  to  the  enmity  of  the  carnal 
mind  to  God,  instead  of  being  protected  from  its  malice  by 
"  twelve  legions  of  angels,"  we  can  see  how  it  should  please  the 
Father  to  bruise  Him,  and  put  the  Son  of  His  love  to  grief, 
such  as  the  restraint  put  upon  the  power  of  the  wicked  up  to  a 
certain  point  had  not  permitted.  We  can  see  how  it  was  fit 
that  He  should  be  exposed  to  suffer  at  the  hands  of  wicked 
men  what  would  be  a  measure  at  once  of  man's  rejection  of 
God  "  This  is  the  Son,  let  us  kill  Him.  and  the  inheritance 
shall  be  ours,"  and  of  the  forgiving  love  of  Him  who  could  die 
for  His  enemies :  and  we  can  see  how  as  a  revealing  of  the  Father 
this  must  take  place  in  the  power  of  the  life  of  sonship,  that  is  to 
say,  in  the  strength  of  the  Son's  conscious  oneness  of  mind 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST.  225 

with  the  Father,   in  the  strength  of  the  life  which  is  in  the 

Father's  favour. 

Therefore,  in  following  the  path  of  the  Son  as  the  Father 
orders  it,  and  keeping  our  ear  open  to  the  voice  which  says, 
"  This  is  my  beloved  Son,"  we  can,  without  feeling  it  a 
contradiction  to  that  voice,  contemplate  the  coming  to  the 
Son  of  "  the  hour  and  power  of  darkness."  But  we  should 
feel  very  differently  if  called  to  believe  in  any  outcoming  of  the 
Father's  mind  towards  the  Son,  or  any  aspect  of  His  counten- 
ance towards  Him  that  did  not  accord  with  the  words,  "  This 
is  my  beloved  Son."  For  this  we  should  feel  quite  unprepared. 
When  Satan  was  permitted  to  try  Job,  it  was  with  this  reserva- 
tion, "  but  save  his  life."  In  our  Lord's  case,  it  is  the  higher 
life,  the  life  in  the  Father's  favour,  that  we  are  prepared  to  see 
untouched.  That  He  should  die,  by  the  grace  of  God  tasting 
death  for  every  man,  so  dying  as  through  death  to  destroy  him 
who  had  the  power  of  death,  that  is  the  devil,  we  can  under- 
stand, seeing  in  this  the  triumph  of  the  eternal  life.  Whatever 
can  have  been  contained  in  the  permission  of  an  hour  and 
power  of  darkness  we  can  believe  to  have  entered  into  the 
divine  counsel,  because  anything  that  these  words  can  express 
could  only  prove  the  might  of  the  eternal  life ; — for  nothing 
simply  permitted — nothing  external  to  God  Himself — nothing 
that  was  not  in  the  divine  aspect  towards  Christ  could 
reach  that  life  to  touch  it  as  a  life  in  God's  favour,  or 
suspend  its  flow  from  God.  But  the  wrath  of  God  as 
coming  forth  towards  Christ  would  be  indeed  the  touching 
of  that  very  life  in  the  Father's  favour,  whose  excellence  and 
might  was  to  be  proved  at  so  great  a  cost.  Accordingly  we 
have  seen  that  it  was  as  a  cup  from  the  Fathers  hand  that 
Christ  received  the  cup  given  Him  to  drink,  and  that  the 
unbroken  sense  of  the  Father's  favour  was  expressed  in  the 
rebuke  to  the  unbelieving,  though  affectionate  zeal  of  Peter, 
"Thinkest  thou  that  I  cannot  now  pray  to  my  Father,  and  He 
shall  presently  give  me  twelve  legions  of  angels  ?  "  And,  most 
conclusive  of  all,  we  have  the  revelation  of  the  nature  of  the 


226  HOW  WE  ARE  TO  CONCEIVE  OF 

strength  in  which  the  anticipated  trial  was  met,  and  in  which 
doubtless  it  was  victoriously  borne,  in  the  express  words  of  our 
Lord  in  reference  to  one  most  bitter  element  of  its  bitterness, — 
"  Behold,  the  hour  cometh,  yea,  is  now  come,  that  ye  shall  be 
scattered  every  man  to  his  own,  and  shall  leave  me  alone :  and 
yet  I  am  not  alone,  because  the  Father  is  with  me!' 

We  can  understand,  then,  the  permission  of  an  hour  and 
power  of  darkness  as  what  could  only  prove  the  might  of  the 
eternal  life  presented  to  our  faith  in  the  Son  of  God.  We  do 
not  so  easily  understand  the  measure  of  the  proof  which  such 
an  hour  was  fitted  to  be.  And  it  is  here  that  the  error  and 
shortcoming  have  been  which  have  permitted  the  comparison 
of  our  Lord's  sufferings  during  the  hour  and  power  of  darkness 
with  the  ordinary  case  of  man's  suffering  at  the  hands  of  man. 

The  actual  treatment  to  which  our  Lord  was  subjected  is 
but  one  of  two  elements  in  His  suffering  j  and  it  has  surely 
been  a  grave  error  to  leave  the  other  element,  which  is,  indeed, 
the  important  element,  out  of  account.  We  may  find  cases 
where  the  physical  infliction  and  the  indignities  offered  have 
been  as  great  or  greater,  but  how  shall  we  calculate  the  infinite 
difference  that  the  mind  in  which  Christ  suffered  has  made  ? 
That  mind,  indeed,  made  Him  equal  to  what  He  had  to  bear, 
for  its  might  was  the  might  of  the  eternal  life  which  is  in  God's 
favour ;  but  this  great  might  was  not  the  might  of  mere  power, 
nor  was  it  that  the  life  of  sonship  imparted  an  insensibility  to 
His  humanity,  or  that  because  of  the  light  of  God  which 
belonged  to  it  made  all  that  He  had  to  encounter  to  be  to  Him 
as  nothing.  On  the  contrary,  the  very  opposite  of  all  this  was 
the  truth.  It  was  not  a  might  of  power  at  all,  but  the  might 
of  realized  perfect  weakness,  whose  only  strength  was  the  strength 
of  faith.  It  was  not  a  bearing  of  the  things  that  came  upon 
Him  in  insensibility.  The  most  tender  sensitiveness  proper 
to  humanity,  as  possessed  and  lived  in  the  truth  of  humanity, 
was  there  open  to  all  that  came  to  wound  it.  It  was  not  that 
in  the  light  of  God,  and  in  the  knowledge  that  He  came  from 
God  and  went  to  God,  there  was  a  raising  of  the  Lord  above 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST.  227 

His  circumstances,  making  them  to  Him  as  nothing.  In  the 
light  of  God,  which  is  the  light  of  love,  all  these  circumstances 
as  they  were  indeed  the  form  taken  by  an  hour  and  power  of 
darkness  had  their  true  import  and  magnitude  and  awful 
substance  of  sin  and  enmity  as  these  are  estimated  by  the 
divine  love.  In  truth,  we  are  to  judge  that  according  as  was 
the  love  which,  in  the  strength  of  love  to  God  and  man,  was 
able  to  drink  that  cup,  so  was  the  bitterness  of  that  cup.  And 
that  according  to  the  measure  of  the  true  sense  and  conscious- 
ness of  humanity  in  Christ,  was  the  sensibility  to  that  bitterness, 
the  capacity  of  suffering  through  it.  And  that  according  to  the 
absolute  felt  weakness  of  the  flesh  to  which  no  strength  at  all 
remained  was  the  need  of  sustaining  faith,  as  the  need  of  one 
believing  in  "  the  dust  of  death." 

If  we  are  not  turned  away  from  meditating  on  this  subject  in 
the  light  of  the  life  itself  which  we  are  seeing  tried  and  triumph- 
ing, and  do  not  unwisely  occupy  ourselves  with  the  record  of 
physical  sufferings,  as  if  we  were  called  on  to  look  at  what 
could  be  known  according  to  the  flesh, — until  the  unsatisfactory 
result  cast  us  upon  the  opposite  error  of  supposing  that  our 
Lord's  agony  in  the  garden  could  not  really  have  its  explana- 
tion in  His  anticipation  of  what  the  hour  and  power  of  dark- 
ness could  be  to  Him, — we  shall  find  even  our  ordinary 
experience  of  human  suffering  as  connected  with  man's  in- 
humanity to  man,  giving  a  right  direction  to  our  thoughts. 

We  are  familiar  with  the  fact,  that  unkindness  affects  quite 
differently  a  meek,  gentle,  loving  spirit,  and  a  proud,  indepen- 
dent, self-relying  spirit.  The  comparative  ease  with  which 
some  men  encounter  all  manner  of  ungracious  and  unbrotherly 
treatment  at  the  hands  of  others  in  the  conflict  of  life  is 
because  they  meet  pride  and  unbrotherliness  in  the  strength  of 
pride  and  unbrotherliness.  This  too  often  passes  for  manli- 
ness;—and  it  would  be  unjust  to  say  that  it  may  not  often  be 
combined  with,  and  upheld  by  the  instinctive  feeling  of  man- 
hood, and  of  what  is  due  to  oneself.  But  assuredly  the  state 
of  mind,  as  a  whole,  tends  to  make  the  apparent  victory  not 


228  HOW  WE  ARE  TO  CONCEIVE  OF 

so  much  a  victory  as  an  insensibility.  The  evil  treatment 
experienced  does  not  really,  in  these  cases,  cause  the  pain  it 
would  cause  to  that  brotherliness  in  which  it  should  be  met, 
and  which,  being  recognised,  has  always  a  witness  in  men's 
consciences  as  the  right  and  highest  way  of  meeting  injuries; 
though  the  pride  that  hinders  a  man  from  feeling  it  himself 
makes  him  slow  to  give  another  credit  for  it.  But  it  is  surely 
not  difficult  to  see  that,  if  our  feeling  of  what  is  due  to  ourselves 
be  free  from  pride,  and  only  commensurate  with  our  feeling  of 
the  love  due  from  us  to  others, — if  our  sense  of  manhood  be  in 
harmony  with  the  true  and  pure  feeling  of  the  oneness  of  all 
flesh,  and  if  the  claim  of  others  on  love  from  us  be  felt  to  be 
altogether  untouched  by  failure  in  love  on  their  part, — being  dis- 
charged by  us  in  the  reality  of  a  love,  that  notwithstanding  such 
failure  loves  them  still, — loves  them  as  we  love  ourselves, 
making  their  sin  our  burden,  as  well  as  also  their  unkindness  to 
be  felt  as  the  disappointing  response  of  hatred  to  love ;  then 
must  unkindness  be  to  us,  so  minded,  a  suffering  and  trial  just 
commensurate  with  the  measure  of  the  unkindness  to  which  we 
are  subjected,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  measure  of  this  love  of 
love  in  us  on  the  other. 

But  it  is  not  alone  the  amount  of  suffering  implied  in  the 
treatment  to  which  our  Lord  was  subjected  that  we  must  fail  to 
estimate  aright,  unless  we  see  that  suffering  in  the  light  of  the 
life  that  was  in  Him.  It  is  still  more  as  to  the  nature  of  that 
suffering  that  we  shall  err.  This  we  feel  the  moment  we  turn 
from  contemplating  it  as  a  physical  infliction  on  the  part  of 
men  and  physical  endurance  on  the  part  of  Christ,  to  contem- 
plate it  in  its  spiritual  aspect  as  the  form  of  the  response  of  enmity 
to  love. 

There  is  surely  very  special  instruction  for  us  here  in  the  fact 
that  shame — indignity — is  so  marked  a  character  of  the  injuries 
inflicted  on  Christ.  I  need  not  illustrate  this  point.  The 
Apostle  speaks  of  "  the  shame  of  the  cross,"  as  if  the  great 
victory  through  the  faith  of  the  joy  set  before  our  Lord  was 
victory  over  that  shame  :  and,  both  in  the  historical  narrative, 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST.  229 

and  in  the  related  Psalms,  indignity  and  contumely,  that  is  to 
say,  all  that  would  most  touch  that  life  which  man  has  in  the 
favour  of  man,  and  which  strikes  more  deeply  than  physical 
infliction,  because  it  goes  deeper  than  the  body, — wounding  the 
spirit, — is  the  most  distinguishing  feature  of  the  evil  use  made 
by  sinful  men  of  the  power  that  they  received  over  the  Son  of 
God  when  He  was  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  sinners. 

All  along,  the  relation  of  the  cross  to  s/iame  was  ever  present 
to  our  Lord's  mind.  It  is  against  the  consequences  of  being 
"  ashamed  of  Him  and  of  His  words  "  as  the  opposite  of  "  con- 
fessing Him  before  men,"  that  His  warnings  are  given.  He 
knew  in  His  own  honouring  of  the  Father  as  bringing  upon 
Him,  as  its  consequence,  dishonour  to  Himself  from  men,  the 
shame  of  which  He  spake,  according  to  the  words,  "The 
reproaches  of  them  that  reproached  thee,  fell  upon  me." 

How  related  the  shame  against  which  He  warned  men  was 
to  their  laying  down  their  life  in  this  world,  so  that  being  con- 
tent to  bear  it  was  identical  with  being  contented  to  lay  down 
that  life,  our  Lord  plainly  declares,  when  preparing  men  for 
the  sacrifice  that  would  be  implied  in  becoming  His  disciples. 
So  the  desire  of  the  honour  which  is  the  correlative  of  that 
shame  is  represented  by  Him  as  hindering  the  faith  to  which 
He  called  men, — "  How  can  ye  believe,  which  receive  honour 
one  of  another,  and  seek  not  the  honour  that  cometh  from  God 
only?"     (John  v.  44.) 

What  are  we  taught  by  all  this  in  relation  to  the  cup  of  suffer- 
ing which  our  Lord  received  from  His  Father's  hand?  For  the 
shame  that  was  an  ingredient  in  that  cup  would  not  have  the 
place  it  has  if  it  were  not  peculiarly  the  occasion  of  suffering  to 
the  suffering  Saviour. 

Here  we  feel  that,  notwithstanding  all  our  great,  our  sinful 
bondage  to  what  others  think  of  us,  a  bondage  of  which  the 
measure  is  never  known  until  we  attempt  to  assert  our  freedom, 
as  the  strength  of  an  iron  fetter  is  not  known  until  the  attempt 
is  made  to  break  it,  still  we  little  realise  what  the  shame  to 
which  our  Lord  was  subjected  was  to  His  Spirit.     And  this  is 


230  HOW  WE  ARE  TO  CONCEIVE  OF 

die  case  partly  because  our  own  bondage  in  this  matter,  however 
real,  and  however  excused  by  us  to  ourselves  because  of  its 
universality  all  around  us,  never  has  the  sanction  of  conscience, 
never  is  what  we  can  confess  before  God,  or  confess  to  ourselves 
without  a  certain  sense  of  degradation.  How  different  the  feel- 
ing with  which  a  man  says,  "I  must  do  as  others  do,"  from  that 
with  which  he  says,  "  This  is  the  will  of  God.  I  must  do  it." 
The  former  obedience  is,  I  say,  felt  to  be  a  degradation  even 
while  it  is  rendered,  while  the  latter,  being  rendered,  is  felt  to 
exalt  and  ennoble.  But  because  of  the  sinful  and  polluted 
form  of  that  reference  to  the  thoughts  of  others  regarding  us,  to 
which  we  are  conscious  in  ourselves,  we  have  the  more  difficulty 
in  entering  into  "  the  shame  of  the  cross,"  as  an  element  in 
Christ's  sufferings.  And  yet  the  importance  assigned  to  it  is, 
as  I  have  said,  undeniable. 

I  have  already  had  occasion  to  quote  that  which  is  said  in 
reference  to  our  Lord's  early  life  at  Nazareth,  that  He  grew  in 
favour  with  God  and  man.  In  the  book  of  Proverbs  iii.  4,  the 
virtues  commended  are  commended  with  this  promise  annexed, 
"So  shalt  thou  find  favour  and  good  understanding  in  the  sight 
of  God  and  man,"  The  first  and  great  commandment  is, 
"  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thine  heart,  and 
mind,  and  soul,  and  strength,"  and  the  second  is  like  unto  it, 
"Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself."  As  our  life  in 
God's  favour  is  related  to  the  first  commandment,  and  our 
capacity  of  that  life  is  the  preparation  of  our  being  for  our 
having  that  command  addressed  to  us, — so  is  there  a  life  like 
unto  that  life  related  to  the  second  commandment,  having  also 
preparation  made  for  it  in  the  constitution  of  humanity,  viz.  a 
life  in  man's  favour, — a  life  like,  I  say,  to  the  life  which  is  in 
God's  favour  in  that  it  is  a  life  in  favour,  i.e.  a  life  not  in 
possessions,  but  in  the  feelings  of  a  heart  towards  us.  As,  then, 
it  is  proper  to  the  life  of  sonship, — the  perfect  love  to  God  as 
the  Father  of  our  spirits, — to  desire  His  favour,  and  know  that 
favour  as  the  light  of  life,  so  it  is  proper  to  the  life  of  brother- 
hood, which  is  the  perfect  love  to  our  neighbour,  to  desire  our 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST.  231 

brother's  favour,  to  desire  that  living  oneness  with  him  which  is 
only  possible  in  unity  of  spirit,  such  as  "  favour/'  if  a  spiritual 
reality,  implies.  Therefore  our  Lord,  the  true  brother  of  every 
man,  desired  this  response  of  heart  from  every  man ;  and  the 
refusal  of  it,  the  giving  of  contempt  instead  of  favour,  and  scorn 
instead  of  that  accord  of  true  brotherhood  which  would  have 
esteemed  Him,  as  was  due  to  Him,  as  "  the  chief  among  ten 
thousand,  and  altogether  lovely,"  was  as  a  death  to  that  life 
which  desired  the  favour  thus  denied. 

No  doubt,  as  it  was,  that  favour  was  withheld  on  grounds 
that  quite  strengthened  the  Son  of  God  to  submit  to  the  loss  of 
it.  He  "  came  in  His  Father's  name,  and  they  received  Him 
not."  No  doubt  it  was  thus  peculiarly  an  ingredient  in  His 
bitter  cup  which  He  was  enabled  to  drink  in  the  strength  of 
sonship ;  but  it  was  not  the  less  on  that  account  bitter  to  the  IL 
heart  of  perfect  brotherhood.  He  was  able  to  bear  the  loss  of 
the  life  that  is  in  man's  favour,  in  the  strength  of  the  higher  life 
which  is  in  the  Father's  favour.  But  in  itself  that  loss  was 
bitter  in  proportion  to  the  pure  capacity  of  life  in  brotherhood 
which  was  in  Him. 

God  is  not  the  author  of  confusion,  but  of  order.  In  giving  us 
two  commandments,  He  has  not  placed  us  under  two  masters. 
The  first  commandment  is  absolute,  and  its  requirements  reach 
to  the  whole  extent  and  circle  of  our  being,  leaving  nothing  to 
the  man  that  it  does  not  claim  for  God;  the  second  our  Lord 
says  is  like  unto  it,  and,  coming  after  so  extensive  a  first  com- 
mandment, would  be  what  we  could  not  meet  with  obedience, 
had  not  "  likeness  "  amounted  to  such  a  relation  to  the  first,  as 
that  obedience  to  the  second  commandment  must  flow  out  of 
obedience  to  the  first.  Therefore,  as  the  strength  to  obey  the 
second  commandment  must  be  in  that  love  to  God  which  is  the 
obeying  of  the  first  commandment,  when  the  obedience  of  that 
second  commandment  is  not  followed  by  its  due  response  from 
those  in  relation  to  whom  it  is  fulfilled,  the  consciousness  thai 
pertains  to  obeying  the  first  commandment  must  still  sustain 
the  spirit.     But  that  second  commandment  has  not  been  really 


232  HOW  WE  ARE  TO  CONCEIVE  OF 

obeyed,  the  love  it  calls  for  has  not  been  truly  cherished,  unless 
the  refusal  of  that  due  response,  and  the  return  of  enmity  for  love 
in  that  most  trying  form  of  scorn  and  contempt,  be  painful. 
And  painful  it  must  be  in  the  measure  of  the  love  that  is  thus 
put  to  grief. 

As  to  our  fleshly  experience  in  this  matter, — our  experience 
of  life  in  the  favour  of  others, — it  is  but  too  clear,  that,  though 
the  desire  of  that  favour  has  a  true  root  in  humanity,  yet  not 
love,  but  selfishness,  renders  that  desire  the  occasion  of  the 
bondage  to  which  we  are  conscious.  But  in  Christ's  case  the 
love  to  men  to  which  men  made  so  evil  a  response — that  very 
love  itself  was  what  demanded  that  coming  to  them  in  His 
Father's  name  because  of  which  they  refused  Him.  His  so 
coming  to  them  was  true  love  to  them,  as  well  as  faithfulness 
to  His  Father, — the  true  brotherhood,  which,  while  seeking 
men's  favour,  seeks  their  good  still  more  than  their  favour. 
Therefore  if  we  would  understand  the  forgiveness  which  by 
giving  occasion  for  its  exercise  our  Lord's  sufferings  during  the 
hour  and  power  of  darkness  developed  in  Him,  we  must  see 
that  His  love  was  forgiving  injuries  which  were,  in  the  strictest 
sense,  injuries  against  itself, — injuries  sustained  by  the  love  as 
love,  and  not  merely  touching  Him  against  whom  they  were 
directed  in  some  more  outward  and  lower  part  of  His  being, 
some  inferior  capacity  of  suffering. 

But  still  more,  even  the  element  in  our  Lord's  sufferings  that 
is  most  purely  physical  is  not  what  our  own  physical  experiences 
prepare  us  to  understand.  There  is  no  doubt  that  it  was  part 
of  the  perfect  truth  of  our  Lord's  consciousness  in  humanity  to 
have  felt  what  was  physical  in  His  suffering  with  a  pure  and 
simple  sense  of  what  it  was  in  itself:  which  we  in  suffering 
physical  pain  escape  in  various  ways,  either  in  the  way  of  nerv- 
ing ourselves  to  bear,  or  in  the  way  of  forcibly  turning  our 
minds  from  the  pain  to  other  considerations.  Nor  does  our 
Father  see  it  necessary,  even  when  He  subjects  us  to  physical 
suffering,  to  leave  us  to  prove  its  fulness. 

President  Edwards,  in  speaking  of  the  elements  of  our  Lord's 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST.  233 

sufferings, — and  in  this  others  have  followed  him, — speaks  of 
that  vision  of  evil  which  he  supposes  to  have  pressed  on  our 
Lord's  spirit,  as  "  unaccompanied  by  counterbalancing  comfort- 
able considerations  and  prospects."  His  object  being  simply 
to  enquire  what  elements  of  suffering  could  accord  with  our 
Lord's  holiness,  in  trying  to  conceive  to  Himself  what  God 
could  use  to  fill  full  a  cup  of  penal  suffering  he  was  led  thus  to 
suppose  holiness  in  Christ  subjected  to  what  would  give  it  pain, 
and  that  pain  left  unmitigated  by  the  presence  to  His  spirit  of 
what  would,  to  the  holiness  thus  pained,  be  counterbalancing 
comfort.  That  for  the  joy  set  before  Him  our  Lord  endured 
that  which  He  endured  does  not  accord  with  this  conception. 
While,  as  I  have  already  said,  I  do  not  believe  that  the  question 
was  at  all  as  to  the  way  in  which  most  suffering  could  be 
accumulated  on  the  sufferer. 

But  there  was  a  reason,  though  not  this,  why  our  Lord,  having 
taken  suffering  flesh,  and  being  subjected  to  suffer  in  it  under 
an  hour  and  power  of  darkness,  should  prove  its  full  capacity 
of  suffering.  For  He  was  to  manifest  to  the  utmost  the  power 
and  courage  of  love  refusing  the  favour  of  man  when  that  follows 
not  the  favour  of  God ;  as  well  as  the  forgiveness  of  love,  when 
those  who  can  kill  the  body,  but  after  that  have  no  more  that 
they  can  do,  put  forth  that  power  in  enmity. 

Among  the  comparisons  which  have  been  so  unwisely  per- 
mitted of  our  Lord's  sufferings  under  this  hour  and  power  of 
darkness  with  what  others  have  suffered,  the  sufferings  of  His 
own  martyrs  have  been  mentioned.  As  to  the  sufferings  of 
martyrs  suffering  in  His  spirit  and  sustained  by  His  strength,  they 
are  obviously  a  part  of  the  fulfilment  of  the  word,  "  Ye  shall 
drink  indeed  of  my  cup,  and  be  baptised  with  the  baptism  that 
I  am  baptised  with :"  but,  unless  we  are  prepared  to  claim  for 
them  the  life  of  love,  in  the  fulness  in  which  it  was  present  in 
Him  from  whom  it  has  flowed  in  them,  we  cannot  conclude 
as  to  the  comparative  amount  of  their  sufferings  from  the  external 
circumstances  of  suffering  in  which  we  see  them. 

But,  apart  from  this,  though  His  church  be  called  to  fill  up 


234  H0W  WE  ARE  T0  CONCEIVE  OF 

what  is  behind  of  Christ's  sufferings,  and  though  the  counsel  of 
God,  in  that  Christ  is  the  vine,  we  the  branches,  He  the  head, 
we  the  members,  implies  that,  in  a  sense,  and  an  important 
sense,  there  is  that  behind  which  remains  to  be  filled  up ;  yet 
in  suffering,  as  in  all  else,  there  was  a  fulness  and  perfection 
in  Christ  Himself,  of  which  we  severally  receive  but  a  part. 
Accordingly,  measures  of  comfort  under  sufferings,  even  to  the 
extent  of  partially  neutralising  these  sufferings,  have  been  often 
granted  to  martyrs,  though  not  to  their  Lord.  Nay,  even  in 
more  ordinary  cases  of  physical  suffering  as  a  cup  which  our 
Father  may  give  us  to  drink,  while  it  is  good  for  us  though 
children  to  learn  obedience  by  the  things  which  we  suffer,  yet 
it  is  sometimes  our  Father's  will,  in  seasons  of  suffering,  to 
reveal  in  the  spirit  so  much  of  His  glory  in  Christ  as  neutralises 
the  physical  suffering.  Thus  David  Brainerd,  to  whom  a  very 
unusual  measure  of  physical  pain  was  appointed,  sometimes 
when  that  pain  was  most  acute,  had  granted  to  him,  along  with 
it,  a  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  which  so  counterbalanced  that 
pain,  that  on  the  whole  he  judged  that  condition  far  happier 
than  any  ordinary  measure  of  religious  joy,  with  ordinary  health. 
But  as  to  our  Lord's  experience  during  that  hour  and  power  of 
darkness,  it  would  seem  inconsistent  with  the  purpose  of  sub- 
jecting Him  to  the  experience  of  the  weakness  of  suffering  flesh 
at  all,  to  conceive  of  this  experience  as  other  than,  so  to  speak, 
perfect.  In  this  view,  the  reason  that  has  been  assigned  for 
His  refusing  the  drink  offered  to  deaden  pain  commends  itself 
to  us. 

I  believe  these  thoughts  as  to  the  elements  of  our  Lord's 
sufferings  as  suffered  at  the  hands  of  men,  and  as  to  the  weak- 
ness of  suffering  flesh  in  which  He  bore  them,  are  true ;  and 
will  help  us  to  realise  the  trial  to  which  forgiving  love  in  the 
Son  of  God  was  put,  and  the  mind  of  love  in  which  He  endured 
the  trial,  the  manner  of  the  victory  of  love.  This  it  concerns 
us  to  know,  because  it  is  with  this  same  love  as  in  Him  towards 
ourselves,  and  as,  alas  !  tried  by  our  sins,  that  we  have  to  do. 
This  it  concerns  us  to  know,  also,  because  it  is  this  same  love 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST.  235 

as  in  us  through  participation  in  Him  as  our  life  that  we  are 
called  to  manifest  towards  others,  and  for  the  developing  of 
which  in  us,  it  may  be  the  Father's  will  that  we  shall  have  a 
personal  experience  of  drinking  of  our  Lord's  cup  and  being 
baptised  with  His  baptism  even  in  outward  form  of  trial ;  which, 
if  it  comes  to  us,  we,  without  this  light,  are  ill  prepared  to  wel- 
come. In  thinking  of  what  has  been,  and  may  yet  be,  of 
literal  conformity  to  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  and  in  considering 
the  probable  history  of  any  attempt  to  persecute  for  Christ's 
name,  or  to  constrain  men  to  deny  Christ, — an  hour  and  power 
of  darkness  coming  to  the  church  towards  the  close  as  to  her 
Lord, — it  is  a  solemn  thing  to  think  that  of  the  many  who 
would  be  found  prepared  to  die  rather  than  deny  Christ,  few 
might  be  found  so  partaking  in  the  life  of  Christ  as  that  dying 
would  be  to  them  the  true  fellowship  of  His  cross, — the  fellow- 
ship of  His  love  to  those  who  crucified  Him, — of  that  love  as 
in  itself  the  deepest  capacity  of  suffering' — of  that  love  as  in  its 
deepest  experience  of  suffering,  proving  its  fountain  to  be  in 
God  by  being  forgiving  love.  And  yet  such  a  victory  of  love 
would  be  but  what  Christ  is  daily  calling  us  to  prove  in  measure 
in  calling  us  to  take  up  our  cross  daily  and  follow  Him. 


2$6 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST,  IN  WHICH  THE  ATONEMENT  WAS 
PERFECTED,  CONSIDERED  IN  THEIR  RELATION,  FIRST,  TO  HIS 
WITNESSING  FOR  GOD  TO  MEN,  AND  SECONDLY,  TO  HIS 
DEALING   WITH    GOD    ON    BEHALF    OF    MEN. 

i.   'T^HESE  sufferings  were  the  perfecting  of  the  Son's  wit- 
nessing  for  the  Father,  being  the  perfected  manifesta- 
tion of  the  life  of  love  as  sonship  towards  God  and  brotherhood 
towards  man. 

The  trial  of  our  Lord's  love  to  men,  and  its  triumph  in  the 
prayer  on  the  cross,  "  Father,  forgive  them  ;  for  they  know  not 
what  they  do,"  and  the  trial  of  His  love  to  the  Father,  and 
trust  in  the  Father,  of  which  the  final  and  perfected  expression 
was  these  words  in  death,  "  Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commend 
Imy  spirit," — were  accomplished  together  by  one  and  the  same 
'elements.  The  power  of  the  life  of  sonship  and  of  conscious 
oneness  with  the  Father  in  His  mind  towards  His  brethren  to 
enable  Christ  to  abide  in  love  and  overcome  evil  with  good,  is 
in  truth  that  which  we  have  now  been  contemplating.  The 
sense  of  His  Father's  fatherliness  was  the  strength  in  which  He 
manifested  this  perfection  of  brotherhood.  For  that  perfection 
of  brotherhood  was  just  His  following  of  the  Father  as  a  dear 
child,  and  all  He  suffered  in  this  path  came  to  Him  as  doing 
His  Fathers  commandments,  and  abiding  in  His  love;  and  thus 
was  the  Father  in  all  this  glorified  in  the  Son.  The  very  words, 
"Father,  forgive  them,"   testify   how  within  the  light    of  the 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST,  &c.  237 

Father's  love  and  favour  the  Intercessor  abode  while  suffering ; 
finding  in  that  favour  strength  to  suffer,  and  not  only  to  suffer, 
but  to  intercede.  And  as  the  experience  of  the  utter  weakness 
of  suffering  flesh  was  necessary  to  the  completeness  of  the 
trial  of  His  love  to  men,  so  was  it  also  essential  to  the  develop- 
ment of  perfect  trust  in  the  Father, — for  there  remained  to  the 
sufferer  no  strength  but  the  strength  of  faith. 

The  outward  history  of  the  hour  and  power  of  darkness  we 
have  detailed  to  us  by  the  Evangelists.  We  have  not,  how- 
ever, much  from  them  to  help  us  to  see  that  "hour"  as  from 
Christ's  side.  But  there  is  a  portion  of  Scripture,  one  of  the 
Psalms,  which  is  usually  received  as  having  this  special  interest 
to  us,  and  which  therefore  is  taken  in  supplement  of  the  gospel 
narrative ;  and  our  Lord's  own  partial  quotation  of  this  psalm 
on  the  cross,  as  well  as  its  own  contents,  seem  to  justify  our  so 
receiving  it.  I  refer  to  the  22nd  psalm,  which  I  believe  to  be 
confirmatory  of  the  view  now  taken  of  the  cup  given  our  Lord 
to  drink  as  being  a  permitted  trial  of  the  faith  of  the  Son  in 
the  Father.  The  first  words  of  this  psalm,  as  quoted  by  our 
Lord,  have  been  regarded  as  the  Son's  utterance  of  the 
sense  of  the  Father's  wrath  endured  under  the  imputa- 
tion of  our  sins.  Such  an  interpretation  seems  to  me  a 
violent  straining  of  the  words  taken  alone ;  but  when  we 
take  them  as  a  part  of  the  psalm,  it  becomes  altogether 
untenable,  being  directly  opposed  to  the  tone  and  char- 
acter of  the  psalm,  as  a  whole.  The  concluding  verses  of 
this  psalm,  by  the  largeness  of  the  reference  to  men,  connect  it 
with  the  character  of  the  cross  as  a  trial  of  the  love  of  brother- 
hood in  Christ.  But  the  first  and  larger  portion  of  it  places 
the  suffering  Saviour  before  us  as  an  individual  sufferer,  drinking 
the  bitter  cup  given  Him  to  drink,  and  uttering  the  trial  of  faith 
which  He  is  experiencing  in  drinking  it. 

The  psalm  opens  with  a  cleaving  appropriation  on  the  part 
of  the  Sufferer  of  God  as  His  God  :  "  My  God,  my  God."  He 
asks  God,  His  God,  why  He  leaves  Him  in  the  hands  of  the 
wicked,  and  interposes  not  on  His  behalf,  delaying  to  answer 


238      THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST,  IN  WHICH 

His  prayer  :  "  Why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?  Why  art  thou  so 
far  from  helping  me,  and  from  the  voice  of  my  roaring  ?  O  my 
God,  I  cry  in  the  day-time,  but  thou  hearest  not ;  and  in  the 
night-season,  and  am  not  silent."  He  refuses  any  explanation 
of  this  silence  that  would  be  dishonouring  to  God  :  "  But  thou 
art  holy,  O  thou  that  inhabitest  the  praises  of  Israel."  He 
refers  to  God's  former  justifying  of  faith  in  the  case  of  others 
of  old :  "  Our  fathers  trusted  in  thee ;  they  trusted,  and  thou 
didst  deliver  them.  They  cried  unto  thee,  and  were  delivered. 
They  trusted  in  thee,  and  were  not  confounded."  But  the 
acknowledgment  of  God  is  delayed  in  His  case  as  it  had  not 
been  in  theirs,  and  the  delay  is  exposing  the  sufferer  to  contempt 
and  scorn  and  the  bitter  reproach  that  His  professed  trust  in 
God  has  been  a  delusion  or  a  false  pretension :  "  But  I  am  a 
worm,  and  no  man  ;  a  reproach  of  men,  and  despised  of  the 
people.  All  they  that  see  me  laugh  me  to  scorn.  They  shoot 
out  the  lip,  they  shake  the  head,  saying,  He  trusted  on  the 
Lord  that  He  would  deliver  Him  :  let  Him  deliver  Him,  seeing 
He  delighted  in  Him."  Therefore  does  the  Tried  One  go 
back  on  that  which  God  has  been  to  Him, — therefore  does  He 
fall  back  on  the  faithfulness  of  God,  as  the  "  faithful  Creator : " 
"  But  thou  art  He  that  took  me  out  of  the  womb :  thou  didst 
make  me  hope  when  I  was  upon  my  mother's  breasts.  I  was 
cast  upon  thee  from  the  womb.  Thou  art  my  God  from  my 
mother's  belly."  Thus  His  faith  is  strengthened,  and  the  prayer, 
the  delay  in  answering  which  has  been  the  subject  of  the  open- 
ing question,  is  renewed ;  for  His  hope  in  God,  His  God,  is  not 
let  go :  "  Be  not  thou  far  from  me ;  for  trouble  is  near ;  for 
there  is  none  to  help."  The  trouble  is  very  great.  The  outer 
circle  of  His  being  is  possessed  by  His  enemies.  He  turns 
from  it  to  that  inner  region  where  God's  nearness  is  to  be 
known,  for  elsewhere  there  is  no  help ;  "  Many  bulls  have  com- 
passed me;  strong  bulls  of  Bashan  have  beset  me  round. 
They  gaped  on  me  with  their  mouths,  as  a  ravening  and  roaring- 
lion. "  And  this  is  while  the  depths  of  the  utter  and  absolute 
weakness  of  humanity  are  proved  by  the  Sufferer  as  by  one  cast 


THE  ATONEMENT  WAS  PERFECTED.  239 

entirely  upon  God  and  who  puts  not  forth  one  effort  on  His  own 
behalf,  nor  gives  place  to  one  movement  of  self-relying  energy 
or  self-dependent  strength  of  the  flesh  :  "  I  am  poured  out  like 
water,  and  all  my  bones  are  out  of  joint :  my  heart  is  like  wax; 
it  is  melted  in  the  midst  of  my  bowels.  My  strength  is  dried 
up  like  a  potsherd  ;  and  my  tongue  cleaveth  to  my  jaws ;  and 
thou  hast  brought  me  into  the  dust  of  death."  Thus  low  in 
suffering  at  the  hands  of  the  wicked  is  He  brought.  "  For  dogs 
have  compassed  me  :  the  assembly  of  the  wicked  have  enclosed 
me  :  they  pierced  my  hands  and  my  feet.  I  may  tell  all  my 
bones  :  they  look  and  stare  upon  me.  They  part  my  garments 
among  them,  and  cast  lots  upon  my  vesture."  All  this  is  per- 
mitted to  the  wicked  ;  for  "  they  would  have  had  no  power  at 
all,  unless  it  had  been  given  them  from  above."  All  this  is 
received  as  therefore  to  Him  from  God :  "  Thou  hast  brought 
me  into  the  dust  of  death."  But  God  is  Himself  to  Him 
"His  God"  still ;  so  He  is  only  the  more  cast  upon  God,  made 
the  more  to  cleave  to  Him  :  "  But  be  not  thou  far  from  me,  O 
Lord  :  O  my  strength,  haste  thou  to  help  me.  Deliver  my  soul 
from  the  sword  ;  my  darling  from  the  power  of  the  dog.  Save 
me  from  the  lion's  mouth." 

And  now  we  meet  the  returning  answer  of^prayer  —  the 
justification  of  the  Sufferer's  unbroken  trust, — the  clearing  up 
of  God's  faithfulness  and  truth  in  the  whole  transaction : 
"  Thou  hast  heard  me  from  the  horns  of  the  unicorns.  I  will 
declare  thy  name  unto  my  brethren  ;  in  the  midst  of  the  con 
gregation  will  I  praise  thee."  His  experience  of  God  was  not 
found  to  be  in  contradiction  to  God's  justification  of  the  trust 
of  the  fathers,  to  which  He  had  referred.  That  of  God  to 
which  they  were  witnesses,  has  been,  through  the  divine  dealing 
with  Him,  only  more  deeply  revealed  : — as  we  see  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  the  testimony  of  the  cloud  of  witnesses, 
connected  with  that  of  our  Lord  Himself,  as  "the  author  and 
finisher  of  faith,"  i.e.  He  whose  faith  perfects  the  revelation  of 
that  in  God  which  we  have  to  trust.  Therefore  he  proceeds,  "Ye 
that  fear  the  Lord,  praise  Him;  all  ye  the  seed  of  Jacob,  glorify 


240     THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST,  IN  WHICH 

Him  :  and  fear  Him,  all  ye  the  seed  of  Israel.  For  He  hath 
not  despised  nor  abhorred  the  affliction  of  the  afflicted  ;  neither 
hath  He  hid  His  face  from  Him.  ;  but  when  He  cried  unto  Him, 
He  heard."  Then  follows  the  expression  of  the  purpose  to 
declare  to  men  what  in  this  great  trial  of  faith  He  has  been 
experiencing  of  God's  faithfulness,  and  a  prophesying  of  the 
result  that  would  follow,  viz.  universal  trust  in  God,  who  had 
not  hid  His  face  from  the  afflicted,  but  had  heard  His  prayer ; 
"  My  praise  shall  be  of  thee  in  the  great  congregation  :  I  will 
pay  my  vows  before  them  that  fear  Him.  The  meek  shall  eat 
and  shall  be  satisfied  :  they  shall  praise  the  Lord,  that  seek 
Him  :  your  heart  shall  live  for  ever.  All  ends  of  the  world 
shall  remember  and  turn  unto  the  Lord  \  and  all  the  kindreds 
of  the  nations  shall  worship  before  thee,"  &c. 

The  character  of  this  psalm  as  a  whole  is,  therefore,  quite 
\  unequivocal,  viz.,  a  dealing  of  the  Father  with  Christ  in  which 
the  cup  of  man's  enmity  is  drank  by  Him  to  its  last  drop, 
n  the  experience  of  absolute  weakness, — true  weakness  of 
lumanity  realised,  whereby  scope  is  given  for  the  trust  of  son- 
ship  towards  the  Father;  and  we  may  add,  considering  the 
eference  to  men  and  their  salvation  with  which  the  psalm 
closes,  the  love  of  brotherhood  to  men.  But  trust  in  God, 
personal  trust,  is  that  of  which  the  trial  is  most  conspicuous  as 
pervading  the  psalm, — trust  in  utter  weakness, — trust  in  the 
midst  of  enemies, — trust  which  the  extremity  of  that  weakness 
and  the  perfected  enmity  of  those  enemies  tries  to  the  utmost, 
— trust  which  the  Father  permits  to  be  thus  tried  \  but  trust  the 
root  of  which  in  the  Father's  favour  has  not  been  cut  off,  nor 
even  touched  by  any  act  of  the  Father  or  expression  of  His  face 
as  if  He  were  turned  into  an  enemy, — as  if  He  looked  on  the 
suppliant  in  wrath, — as  if  He  regarded  him  as  a  sinner,  imputed 
sin  to  him.  Not  this,  not  the  most  distant  approach  to  this. 
Nay,  on  the  contrary,  language  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  the 
Tried  One  that  would  seem  to  preclude  the  possibility  of  such 
a  misconception  as  completely  as  if  chosen  for  that  purpose ; 
and  the  very  ground  on  which  the  exhortation  is  given  "  Ye 


THE  ATONEMENT  WAS  PERFECTED.  24 1 

that  fear  the  Lord,  praise  Him;  all  ye  the  seed  of  Jacob,  gl6rify 
Him ;  and  praise  Him,  all  ye  the  seed  of  Israel,"  is  "  For 
He  hath  not  despised  nor  abhorred  the  affliction  of  the 
afflicted;  neither  hath  He  hid  His  face  from  him;  but  when 
he  cried  unto  Him,  He  heard,"  leaving  no  place  even  for  that 
negative  wrath,  if  the  expression  be  not  a  contradiction,  which, 
in  clinging  to  the  idea  that  the  cup  given  to  Christ  was  the  cup 
of  the  Father's  wrath  while  yet  shrinking  from  what  such  words 
should  mean,  has,  as  we  have  seen  above,  been  set  forth  as  a 
hiding  of  the  Father's  face. 

A  measure  of  freedom  of  pleading  with  the  Father  while 
drinking  of  the  bitter  cup  is  indeed  here  recorded  which  is  of 
the  same  character  and  has  the  same  special  impress  of  a  life 
upon  it  which  the  words,  "  if  it  be  possible  let  this  cup  pass 
from  me,"  as  used  in  the  anticipation  of  drinking  it,  have.  But 
that  we  meet  here  an  interruption  of  the  continuity  of  that  life 
which  was  in  the  consciousness  of  the  Father's  favour,  an  ex- 
ception to  the  experience  of  abiding  in  the  Father's  love 
because  keeping  His  commandments — that  a  moment  had 
arrived  in  which  the  confidence  was  disappointed  which  He 
had  expressed  when  He  said,  "  Ye  shall  flee  every  man  to  his 
own,  and  shall  leave  me  alone  :  and  yet  I  am  not  alone,  because 
the  Father  is  with  me" — that  having  said,  "I  lay  down  my  life 
that  I  might  take  it  up  again,  therefore  my  Father  loveth  me," 
the  love  of  which  He  thus  spoke  was  not  His  strength  in  dying, 
but  that  He  tasted  death  under  the  Father's  wrath  ;  of  this,  or 
anything  in  the  most  distant  way  suggestive  of  this,  there  is  no 
trace. 

And  this  remains  true  whatever  width  of  meaning  we  may 
give  to  the  expression  "hour  and  power  of  darkness."  Many 
have  dwelt  upon  the  part  that  he  who  is  said  to  have  the  power 
of  death,  viz.,  the  devil,  may  have  had  in  our  Lord's  sufferings 
on  the  cross  and  in  all  this  season.  Considering  the  manner  of 
trial  which  he  was  permitted  to  be  to  our  Lord  at  His  entering 
on  His  ministry,  there  is  nothing  that  we  need  be  repelled  by 
in  the  thought  that,  in  the  invisible,  a  part  of  the  trial  appointed 


242      THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST,  IN  WHICH 

for  our  Lord  may  have  been  a  permission  to  him  to  express  his 
malice.  But  on  this  supposed  element  in  the  cup  given  Christ 
to  drink  I  must  be  silent  as  to  positive  statement,  not  seeing 
that  anything  is  revealed.  Only  this  much  may  be  confidently 
asserted,  that  anything  permitted  now  could  only  be  what  that 
permitted  formerly  was,  that  \%^jHal  of  the  faith  of  sonship  ;  for 
indeed  as  to  the  former  trial,  while  the  devil  is  represented  ^as 
met  by  the  Saviour  with  quotations  from  Scripture  for  which 
the  tempter's  appeal  to  Scripture  was  one  reason,  we  shall  lose 
much  if  we  do  not  mark  that  the  bringing  forth  of  meaning  of 
the  words  quoted  by  the  enemy  by  placing  them  in  their  true 
harmony  with  other  passages,  is  a  use  of  Scripture  for  which  no 
verbal  knowledge  of  Scripture  can  qualify,  but  of  which  those 
alone  are  capable  who  are  the  children  of  wisdom.  That  the  fiery 
darts  of  the  wicked  of  which  so  many  have  had  experience  may 
be  a  participation  in  one  element  of  our  Lord's  cup,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  understand.  But  if  so,  these  fiery  darts  have 
been  met  by  Him  with  the  shield  of  faith  in  the  Father's  father- 
liness,  and  can  have  had  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  the  real 
aspect  of  the  Father's  face  towards  Him ;  nor  could  any  sup- 
posed amount  of  such  an  element  as  this  in  His  cup  be  in  the 
smallest  degree  an  approach  to  what  has  been  conceived  of  as 
the  wrath  of  God.  This  is  certain,  as  neither  could  any  suffer- 
ing from  this  supposed  source,  whatever  its  amount,  be  con- 
sistent with  the  idea  of  penal  suffering,  any  more  than  any 
other  element  of  suffering  which  was  painful  because  of  the 
holiness  of  the  sufferer, — however  it  might  accord  with  the 
purpose  of  making  our  Lord  perfect  through  sufferings  as  the 
Captain  of  our  salvation  and  He  who  led  captivity  captive. 

If  the  22nd  psalm  help  us  to  conceive  more  truly  of  what 
our  Lord  felt  while  suffering  at  the  hands  of  the  wicked,  it 
must,  in  the  measure  in  which  it  does  so,  add  to  the  value  to 
us  of  the  words  of  forgiving  intercession  which  He  uttered  on 
the  cross, — as  all  unadvised  depreciating  of  what  men's  treat- 
ment of  Him  was  to  Christ  must  lessen  their  value.  In  pro- 
portion, also,  as  this  psalm  presents  to  us  the  trial  to  which  the 


THE  ATONEMENT  WAS  PERFECTED.  243 

faith  of  sonship  in  Christ  was  subjected,  it  helps  us  to  realise 
the  victory  of  that  faith  which  is  revealed  in  the  peace  of  the 
words  in  death,  "  Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit." 
But  the  triumphant  close  of  the  psalm,  and  its  large  prophetic 
intimations  shed  important  light  back  on  the  purely  individual 
tone  of  the  earlier  part  of  it.  We  are  not  told  in  the  psalm  itself 
what  the  answer  to  "  the  cry  of  the  afflicted  "  has  been  j  only 
the  language  of  supplication  so  accords  with  what  is  said  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  (v.  7,)  of  our  Lord's  having  "in  the 
days  of  His  flesh  offered  up  prayers  and  supplications  with 
strong  crying  and  tears  unto  Him  that  was  able  to  save  Him 
from  death  and  being  heard  in  that  He  feared," — that  we  can- 
not hesitate  in  assuming  the  relation  of  these  passages,  or  in 
connecting  the  last  with  what  is  said  in  the  21st  psalm,  ver.  4, 
"  He  asked  life  of  thee,  and  thou  gavest  it  Him,  even  length  of 
days  for  ever  and  ever ;"  an  answer  according  with  the  peace 
of  the  words,  "  Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit." 
The  comfort  of  this  answer  is  indeed,  so  far  as  the  language 
goes,  as  purely  individual  as  the  tone  of  the  agony  and  the 
pleading.  Yet  the  prospect  for  men  which  is  seen  to  open  to 
the  suppliant  reveals  an  interest  of  all  men  in  the  answer  of 
His  prayer,  as  well  as  the  consciousness  of  a  relation  to  all  men 
in  the  previous  suffering  in  which  the  cry  was  uttered,  the  divine 
response  to  which  is  thus  salvation  to  men.  So  that,  notwith- 
standing the  individuality  of  the  tone  of  the  earlier  part  of  the 
psalm,  we  are  justified  in  ascribing  to  the  sufferer  an  inward 
sense  of  His  relation  to  all  men  corresponding  with  the  expres- 
sion used  by  Him  in  anticipating  His  sufferings  :  "  And  I,  if  I 
be  lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me," — a  reference  such  as 
the  words  imply,  "who  for  the  joy  set  before  Him  endured  the 
cross."  Notwithstanding,  therefore,  the  individual  tone  of  this 
psalm  which,  at  first  sight,  does  not  seem  to  accord  with  its 
unquestionable  reference  to  the  crucifixion  of  Christ,  we  see  in 
its  close  that  it  indeed  belongs  to  Him  who  bore  our  sins  in 
His  own  body  on  the  tree,  and  who,  having  made  peace  by  the 


244      THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST,  IN  WHICH 

blood  of  His  cross,  came  and  preached  peace  to  them  who  were 
afar  off,  and  to  them  that  were  near. 

But  it  is  not  only  as  indicating  to  us  that  the  interests  of  all 
humanity  were  involved  in  that  suffering  and  that  cry  of  the 
afflicted  and  in  the  divine  response  to  that  cry,  that  the  latter 
part  of  this  psalm  is  so  important.  It  is  still  more  important, 
as  shedding  light  upon  the  atonement  by  the  representation 
made  of  the  way  in  which  the  happy  result  as  to  men  which  is 
prophesied  is  to  be  accomplished.  It  is  the  Father's  acknow- 
ledgment of  the  faith  of  the  Son,  which,  being  made  known  to 
men,  is  to  cause  "  all  the  ends  of  the  world  to  remember  and 
turn  unto  the  Lord,  and  all  the  kindreds  of  the  nations  to 
worship  before  Him."  However  much  the  Afflicted  One  whose 
cry  had  been  heard  was,  as  the  Holy  One  of  God,  separated 
from  all  men  :  however  it  might  be  assumed  that  He  had 
grounds  to  plead  in  prayer  peculiar  to  Himself;  however  free 
also  He  was  from  all  that  cause  of  fear  and  hesitation  in  lifting 
up  the  heart  to  God  in  prayer,  which  ordinary  men  are  con- 
scious to  as  sinners  :  still  His  prayer  must  have  been  offered 
on  a  ground  that  all  may  occupy,  and  from  which  sin  need 
exclude  none.  This  is  clear ;  otherwise,  that  His  prayer  was 
heard,  would  not  have  been  that  Gospel  to  a  sinful  world, 
which  it  is  here  set  forth  as  being.  We  must  believe  that  any 
sinner  of  the  human  race  to  whom  the  nature  of  that  cry  and 
the  grounds  of  it,  and  that  which  it  sought  from  God,  would  be 
revealed  in  the  Spirit,  would  see  in  the  divine  answer  what 
would  quicken  faith  and  hope  towards  God  in  that  sinner. 
He  who  in  coming  to  this  world  had  said,  "  Lo  I  come  to  do 
thy  will,  O  God," — who  could,  as  to  the  fulfilment  of  this  pur- 
pose, say  to  the  Father,  "I  have  glorified  thee  on  earth,  I  have 
declared  thy  name,  and  will  declare  it,"  is  seen  here  at  the  close  of 
His  course,  as  one  holding  fast  the  beginning  of  His  confidence, 
and  in  this  last  trying  time,  and  while  subjected  to  the  hour 
and  power  of  darkness,  sustained  by  the  simple  faith  of  that 
original  fatherliness  of  the  Father's  heart,  which  He  had  come 
f 07ih  to  reveal  and  to  reveal  by  trusting  it. 


THE  ATONEMENT  WAS  PERFECTED.  245 

Thus,  the  Holy  One  of  God,  God's  holy  child  Jesus,  having 
glorified  his  Father  on  the  earth  in  all  living  righteous 
fulfilment  of  His  will,  now  perfects  His  glorifying  of  the 
Father's  Name,  by  being  seen  trusting  in  that  Name 
alone  when  brought  in  the  extremest  need  of  a  sure  hold 
of  God, — trusting  simply  in  that  Name,  and  not  raising  a  claim 
of  merit  on  having  so  perfectly  honoured  that  Name.  The 
Sinless  One  is  seen  trusting  simply  in  that  Name  which  He  had 
come  to  reveal  to  sinners,  that  they  also  might  trust  in  it  and 
be  saved;  and  thus  the  Father's  response  to  that  trust  is 
preached  as  the  gospel  to  the  chief  of  sinners.  When  one  who 
has  seen  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  who 
through  Christ  has  faith  and  hope  towards  God,  invites  a 
brother  sinner  to  share  in  his  joy  in  the  Lord,  to  share  in  his 
confidence  through  Christ,  it  is  not  an  uncommon  reply  to  be 
told,  "  But  you  are  much  better  than  I  am.  If  I  were  only  as 
religious  as  you  are,  and  obeyed  God  as  you  seem  to  do,  I 
should  cherish  hope."  And  when  such  a  person  replies,  "But 
you  do  not  understand  the  secret  of  my  peace.  I  am  not 
trusting  to  my  own  merits.  I  am  trusting  simply  and  entirely 
to  the  free  grace  of  God  :  the  mercy  of  God  revealed  in  Christ 
and  which  has  just  the  same  relation  to  you  that  it  has  to  me  is 
the  source  of  all  my  peace.  I  indeed  do  seek  to  please  God. 
Indeed  I  seek  my  life  in  His  favour.  But  I  do  so  altogether 
in  the  strength  of  that  mind  and  heart  of  God  towards  me  which 
the  gospel  reveals,  and  my  doing  so  is  only  my  welcoming  of 
the  salvation  which  is  given  me  in  the  Son  of  God;'5 — he  has 
often  the  pain  of  finding  all  he  thus  urges  going  for  nothing, 
because  it  is  set  down  as  only  Christian  humility  on  his  part, — 
only  the  effect  of  the  high  standard  which  he  is  setting  before 
himself;  and  so,  while  it  is  thought  to  be  very  becoming  in  him 
to  be  thus  humble,  yet  it  still  is  felt  that  he  must  be  trusting  to 
that  in  which  he  is  seen  to  differ  from  others;  and  so  his  peace 
is  no  gospel  to  those  who  feel  themselves  so  unlike  him. 

To  meet  this  is  painful  and  embarrassing  when  one  would  say 
with  the  Psalmist,  "O  taste  and  see  that  God  is  Good ':  blessed 

T 


246      THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST,  IN  WHICH 

is  the  man  that  trusteth  in  Him."  But  it  may  surely  serve  to 
clear  up  this  matter,  and  to  remove  all  darkness  from  the  sub- 
ject of  peace  with  God,  to  consider  that  our  Lord  Himself  at 
the  last  as  at  the  first,  trusted  simply  and  purely  in  the  fatherli- 
ness  of  the  Father.  "  But  thou  art  He  that  took  me  out  of  my 
mother's  womb.  Thou  didst  make  me  hope  when  I  was  upon  my 
mother's  breasts."  That  which  is  not  understood  while  men's 
conceptions  of  salvation  are  self-righteous,  whether  they  are 
still  flattering  themselves  with  the  hope  that  they  are  in  some 
measure  succeeding  in  recommending  themselves  to  God's 
favour,  or  are  less  or  more  disturbed  by  the  sense  of  failure  in 
this  attempt,  is  the  simple  nature  of  trust  in  God  as  the  re- 
sponse of  sonship  to  the  heart  of  the  Father  apprehended  by 
faith.  The  oneness  of  sonship  as  perfect  in  Christ,  and  as  in 
measure  in  us  through  participation  in  Christ,  I  have  sought  to 
keep  before  my  reader's  mind  all  along.  To  understand  this 
oneness  is  what  is  needed  to  enable  us  to  understand  how  the 
Father's  response  to  the  cry  of  the  Son,  as  "  the  afflicted,"  the 
trial  of  whose  faith  is  so  far  set  before  us  in  this  psalm,  is  ex- 
pected to  have  power,  being  made  known,  to  cause  "  all  the 
ends  of  the  world  to  remember  and  turn  unto  the  Lord,  and  all 
the  kindreds  of  the  nations  to  worship  before  Him." 

2.  The  sufferings  of  Christ,  which  thus  perfected  His  wit- 
nessing for  God  to  men,  had  an  equally  close  relation  to  His 
dealing  with  the  Father  on  our  behalf, — giving  its  ultimate 
depth  to  His  confession  of  our  sins,  and  the  excellence  of  a 
perfect  development  of  love  and  faith  to  His  intercession  for 
sinners,  according  to  the  will  of  God. 

The  expectation  as  to  the  great  results  that  were  to  follow, 
because  "  God  had  not  despised  nor  abhorred  the  affliction  of 
the  afflicted,  neither  had  hid  His  face  from  Him,  but  when  He 
cried  unto  Him  He  heard,"  with  the  expression  of  which  the 
22nd  psalm  concludes,  is  in  effect  the  preaching  to  us  of  the 
gospel  that  God  has  given  to  us  eternal  life  in  His  Son ; — for  it 
is  the  declaration  that  the  knowledge  of  the  Son's  trust  in  the 
Father  will  introduce  us  to  the  fellowship  of  that  trust.     But 


THE  ATONEMENT  WAS  PERFECTED.  247 

we  are  to  learn  from  what  we  know  otherwise  of  that  cross  of 
the  Redeemer,  which,  in  one  aspect  of  it,  this  psalm  so  sets 
before  us,  how  this  should  be  so.  It  was  in  making  His  soul 
an  offering  for  sin  that  this  terrible  trial  of  the  faith  proper  to 
sonship  came  to  Christ.  He  was  wounded  for  our  transgres- 
sions, and  bruised  for  our  iniquities, — that  which  He  suffered 
was  the  chastisement  that  was  to  issue  in  peace  to  us,  and  His 
stripes  were  for  the  healing  of  our  souls ;  for  He  suffered  the 
just  for  the  unjust  that  He  might  bring  us  to  God, — bearing 
our  sins  in  His  own  body  on  the  tree,  that  we,  being  dead  to 
sins,  should  live  unto  righteousness.  In  accomplishing  these 
results,  we  have  now  seen  that,  in  order  to  the  perfection  of  the 
work  of  Christ  as  witnessing  for  God  to  men,  it  has  appeared  to 
the  divine  wisdom  necessary  to  subject  His  love  and  trust 
towards  the  Father,  and  His  long-suffering  forgiveness  in  bear- 
ing the  contradiction  of  sinners  against  Himself,  to  the  trial  of 
the  hour  and  power  of  darkness.  Nor  was  the  bitter  cup  thus 
appointed  by  the  Father  for  the  Son  less  important  to  the  full 
development  of  the  other  element  in  the  atonement,  viz.  the 
dealing  of  the  Son  with  the  Father  on  our  behalf,  as  confessing 
our  sins  and  making  intercession  for  us,  according  to  the  will 
of  God. 

The  intercession  of  forgiving  love  in  the  words,  "Father, 
forgive  them;  for  they  know  not  what  they  do,"  has  already 
engaged  our  attention,  as  it  was  the  expression  of  Christ's  own 
forgiveness  of  His  enemies, — and  so  also  a  part  of  His  testi- 
mony for  the  Father,  as  He  says,  "  Love  your  enemies,  bless 
them  that  curse  you,  do  good  to  them  that  hate  you,  and  pray 
for  them  that  despitefully  use  you  and  persecute  you ;  that  ye 
may  be  the  children,  of  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven."  But  con- 
templating our  Lord  as  bearing  us  on  His  Spirit  before  the 
Father,  and  dealing  on  our  behalf  with  the  righteousness  and 
mercy  of  God,  confessing  our  sin  with  that  confession  which 
was  the  due  response  to  the  divine  wrath  against  sin,  and  inter- 
ceding for  us  according  to  the  hope  that  was  for  us  in  God ; 
this  prayer  on  the  cross, — "Father,  forgive  them;    for   they 


248      THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST,  IN  WHICH 

know  not  what  they  do,"  belongs  to  the  perfecting  of  this  inter- 
cession of  redeeming  love  in  making  our  peace  with  God — that 
peace  which,  because  perfected  on  the  cross,  is  set  forth  to  us 
as  made  there. 

It  is  obvious  that  all  by  which  the  pressure  of  our  sins  on 
the  Spirit  of  Christ  was  increased  and  He  was  brought  into 
closer  contact  with  them  and  deeper  experience  of  the  hatred 
of  the  darkness  to  the  light  must  have  given  a  continually 
deepening  character  to  Christ's  dealing  with  the  Father  on  our 
behalf;  giving  an  increasing  depth  to  His  response  to  the 
divine  condemnation  of  our  sin,  causing  that  response  to  be 
rendered  in  deeper  agony  of  spirit,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
rendering  His  persevering  intercession  a  casting  Himself  more 
and  more  on  the  further,  and  deeper  depths  of  fatherliness  in 
the  Father.  Adhering  to  the  conception  of  a  progressive 
development  of  the  eternal  life  in  our  Lord's  human  con- 
sciousness, and  looking  at  all  that  was  appointed  for  Him  by 
the  Father  as  adapted  by  the  divine  wisdom  for  the  end  of 
forwarding  this  development,  we  indeed  see  abundant  reason 
for  that  perfected  personal  experience  of  the  enmity  of  the 
carnal  mind  to  God,  to  which  our  Lord  was  subjected.  With- 
out this  the  Son  could  never  have  proved  in  human  conscious- 
ness, as  we  have  just  been  contemplating  Him  as  doing  the 
forgiveness  that  is  in  love ; — or  the  strength  to  overcome  evil 
with  good,  which  brotherly  love  can  exercise,  sustained  by  the 
faith  of  sonship  trusting  in  the  love  of  the  Father ;  or  the 
sufficiency  that  is  in  the  Father's  favour  for  the  life  of  sonship, 
however  absolutely  cast  upon  God.  And  so  neither  without 
this  could  an  adequate  confession  of  man's  sin  have  been 
offered  to  God  in  humanity  in  expiation  of  man's  sin,  nor  inter- 
cession have  been  made  according  to  the  extent  of  man's  need 
of  forgiveness. 

Therefore,  though  not  as  filling  a  cup  of  penal  suffering,  yet 
as  essential  to  the  living  reality  of  a  moral  and  spiritual  atone- 
ment for  sin,  are  all  those  painful  experiences  which  President 
Edwards  has  so  fully  entered  into  in  his  illustrations  of  Christ's 


THE  ATONEMENT  WAS  PERFECTED. 


249 


suffering  for  our  sins  when  He  bore  them  in  His  own  body  on 
the  tree,  to  be  weighed  equally  by  us  also.  I  have  already 
noticed  the  limits  which  Edwards  has  recognised  as  to  be 
observed  in  conceiving  to  ourselves  the  elements  of  the 
inward  mental  sufferings  to  which  our  Lord  was  subjected 
while  the  malice  of  the  wicked  was  poured  upon  Him  from 
without, — being  thankful  that  he  has  recognised  such  limits ; 
nor,  as  I  have  said  above,  is  it  to  his  representation  of  the 
amount  of  Christ's  sufferings,  or  of  their  nature  that  I  object, 
but  to  the  conception  that  these  sufferings  were  penal. 
Assuming  that  idea  to  be  precluded,  as  urged  above,  by~~Fhe 
very  nature  of  the  sufferings  endured,  I  am  only  the  more 
anxious  that  we  should  not  come  shortJri_our  apprehension  of 
.  the  terrible  reality  that  was  in  these  sufferings,  or  of  the 
real  and  necessary  proportion  that  was  between  our  sins  and 
that  wounding  to  which  Christ  submitted,  in  making  His  soul  an 
offering  for  sin. 

The  peace-making  between  God  and  man,  which  was  perfected 
by  our  Lord  on  the  cross,  required  to  its  reality  the  presence  to 
the^  spirit  of  Christ  of  the  elements  of  the  alienation  as  well  as  the 
possession  by  Him  of  that  eternal  righteousness  in  which  was 
the  virtue  to  make  peace.  All  the  considerations  that  had  a 
claim  in  the  truth  of  things  to  be  taken  into  account  must  have 
been  taken  into  account :  and  though  God's  wrath  against  sin 
was  not  felt  by  the  Son  of  God  as  coming  forth  against  Him- 
self personally,  as  if  the  Father  saw  Him  as  a  sinner ;  yet  must 
that  wrath  in  the  truth  of  what  it  is  have  been  present  to  and 
realised  by  His  spirit ; — and  though  He  suffered  not  from  it  as 
"  having  its  revenges  inflicted  on  Him,"  yet  must  the  realisa- 
tion of  it  and  confession  of  its  righteousness,  in  perfect  sym- 
pathy with  that  righteousness,  have  been  a  suffering  propor- 
tioned to  His  spiritual  perfection ;  and  while  He  interceded  in 
the  faith  of  the  infinite  love  of  the  Father  and  knowing  that 
the  will  of  God  was  our  salvation,  yet  must  the  love  that  was 
taking  this  form  have  suffered  in  itself,  while  interceding,  all  the 
pain  proper  to  the  heart  of  perfect  sonship,  in  its  sympathy 


y 


itf 


250      THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST,  IN  WHICH 

with  the  feelings  of  perfect  fatherhood  against  which  His 
brethren  had  sinned.  Surely  the  soul  that  was  made  to  be 
filled  with  the  consciousness  which  these  thoughts  imply  was 
made  a  sacrifice  for  sin.  Surely,  while  freed  from  all  that  it  is 
so  impossible  to  harmonise  with  the  faith  of  a  true  conscious- 
ness in  this  great  transaction — either  in  contemplating  the 
mind  of  the  Father  towards  the  Son,  or  the  mind  of  the  Son 
towards  the  Father — which  is  implied  in  the  imputation  of  our 
sins  to  Christ  and  the  assumption  that  His  sufferings  were 
penal,  there  is  seen  still  in  this  great  peace-making  an  awful 
conuftg^-together  in  the  inner  man  of  the  Son  ofGod  of  moral 
and  spiritual_elgni£ja*s  ;^the  harmimisThg'of  which  in  the  result 
of  peace  between  man  and  God — a  peace  in  God  realised  in 
humanity  for  man  to  know  and  partake  in,  a  peace  to  be 
preached  to  the  chief  of  sinners — has  been  a  work  of  love  in 
which  the  Son  of  God  is  seen  bearing  the  chastisement  of  our 
peace ;  suffering  for  us,  the  just  for  the  unjust,  to  bring  us  to 
God. 

Let  it  not  seem  to  any  as  if  while  rejecting  the  conception 
of  penal  suffering  as  the  atonement  I  were  still  anxious  to  keep 
the  idea  of  suffering  before  the  mind,  and  to  raise  as  high  as 
possible  the  conception  of  that  suffering,  as  feeling  a  demand 
for  suffering  in  the  history  of  the  pardon  of  our  sins  to  be  what 
is  to  be  ascribed  to  God,  a  demand  for  suffering  as  suffering. 
That  would  indeed  be  to  cherish  indirectly  the  wrong  concep- 
tion of  atonement,  deliverance  from  which  I  feel  so  important. 
I  am  only  anxious  that  the  elements  of  the  dealing  of  the  Son 
with  the  Father  in  His  intercession  for  us  should  be  realised  by 
us,  so  that  the  mind  of  God  in  relation  to  us  and  our  sins 
should  be  truly  apprehended  ;  and  the  hatefulness  of  our  sins, 
as  well  as  our  personal  preciousness  to  the  Father  of  our  spirits, 
be  revealed  to  us  through  the  apprehension  of  the  elements  of 
the  peace  which  Christ  accomplished  on  the  cross.  Nothing 
can  be  more  vague  or  practically  unsuited  to  the  real  need  of 
our  spirits,  polluted  with  the  pollution  of  sin,  than  the  kind  of 
meaning  associated  with  our  being  "  washed  in  the  blood  of 


THE  ATONEMENT  WAS  PERFECTED.  25  I 

Christ,"  while  the  thought  of  the  shedding  of  His  blood  is  the 
thought  of  the  punishment  of  our  sins,  as  endured  by  Christ  for 
us.  The  nearest  approach  to  a  meaning  which  the  common 
prayer,  "  to  be  washed  in  the  blood  of  Christ,"  has,  as  used  in 
this  connexion,  is,  I  think,  the  expression  of  the  feeling  in 
the  suppliant  that  he  deserves  wrath,  and  a  recognition 
of  the  sufferings  of  Christ  for  his  sin  as  the  only  ground  on 
which  he  can  expect  pardon  ;  and  a  certain  element  of  self- 
despair,  and  of  hope  in  free  grace,  may  be  present,  and, 
I  doubt  not,  often  is  present  in  this  form  of  thought.  But 
if  the  blood  of  Christ  be  to  our  thoughts  the  spiritual  reality 
which  was  in  Christ's  making  His  soul  an  offering  for  sin, 
then,  to  be  washed  in  the  blood  of  CnTTsTmust  be  to  have  the 
moral  and  spiritual  elements  of  that  offering  revealed  in  our 
spirits,  so  bringing  us  into  spiritual  harmony  with  them, 
making  us  to  partake  in  them ;  which  to  call  a  spiritual 
cleansing  is  no  figure  of  speech  but  the  simplest  and  most 
natural  expression  for  a  spiritual  reality.  But  in  this  view 
every  element  in  the  great  peace-making,  which  the  Gospel 
proclaims  as  having  been  altogether  and  perfectly  success- 
ful and  as  resulting  in  a  true  spiritual  peace  for  man, — a 
peace  for  man  to  be  enjoyed  in  fellowship  with  the  Father 
and  the  Son  in  the  Spirit, — is  of  the  utmost  importance; 
and  to  leave  any  one  element  out  unembraced  by  our  faith 
is  to  be  practically  without  the  knowledge  and  so  without 
the  use  of  a  part  of  the  unsearchable  riches  which  we  have 
in  Christ. 

In  the  full  and  clear  apprehension  of  the  moral  and 
spiritual  atonement  made  by  the  Son  of  God  in  the  faith 
of  the  peace  made  by  Him  on  the  cross,  then  perfected,  but 
in  relation  to  which  He  was  all  along  "the  blessed  peace 
maker,"  it  is  most  surely  felt  that  the  true  and  perfect 
atonement,  expiation,  and  satisfaction  for  man  s  sin  is  known  \ 
that  we  are  in  the  light  of  it  \  and  that  that  light  is  the  light 
of  life. 

As   respects  what  the   atonement  is  in  itself  and    Christ's 


Y 


252      THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST,  IN  WHICH 

consciousness  in  making  it,  we  see  that,  if  Christ  had  been 
literally,  as  Luther  has  attempted  to  believe,  made  the  reality 
J  of  sin  for  us, — if  He  had  been  in  personal  consciousness  the  one 
sinner  guilty  of  all  the  sins  of  all  men,  and  under  this  load  of 
guilt  had  sought,  in  the  strength  of  conscious  perfect  righteous- 
ness, the  Father's  face ;  such  confession  of  the  evil  of  sin, 
such  entrance  into  the  Father's  mind  regarding  it,  such  respon- 
sive unity  with  the  Father  in  the  condemnation  of  it,  as  we 
have  been  ascribing  to  Him  as  presented  by  Him  to  the 
Father  with  reference  to  our  sins,  would  have  been  the  atone- 
ment He  would  have  made ;  and  such  trust  in  the  fatherli- 
ness  of  the  Father  as  we  have  assumed  to  have  encouraged 
and  sustained  His  intercession  for  us  would  have  been  the 
strength  of  hope  in  which  He  would  have  made  that  atone- 
ment. Therefore,  being  the  holy  one  of  God,  and  separate 
from  sin,  in  personal  consciousness  as  well  as  in  reality,  yet 
bearing  our  sins  on  His  heart  before  the  Father,  dealing  with 
the  Father's  righteousness  and  mercy  on  our  behalf,  asking 
for  us  that  which  was  according  to  the  Father's  will,  we 
feel  that  the  confession  and  the  intercession  made  by  Him 
— divine,  while  human — must  have  been  made  with  the 
consciousness  of  its  suitableness  and  the  assurance  of  its 
acceptance.  "  I  said,  I  will  confess  my  transgressions  unto 
the  Lord ;  and  thou  forgavest  the  iniquity  of  my  sin."  Psalm 
xxxii.  5. 

As  to  ourselves  and  the  light  in  which  we  see  all  that  con- 
cerns our  relation  to  God  in  contemplating  the  Son's  dealing 
with  the  Father  on  our  behalf,  if  we  understand  the  elements 
of  that  which  we  contemplate  we  must  feel  that  it  is  what, 
could  we  have  offered  it  to  God,  was  due  from  ourselves  j  and 
that,  could  we  have  offered  it,  would  have  been  an  atonement 
such  as  no  endurance  of  punishment  could  ever  have  been; 
this  we  must  feel,  though  at  the  same  time  we  feel  that  to  have 
made  it  was  as  impossible  for  us  as  to  have  made  ourselves 
divine ;  while  yet  we  also  see  that  we  must  partake  in  it,  and 
must  have  its  elements  reproduced  in  us,  for  that  these  elements 


THE  ATONEMENT  WAS  PERFECTED.  253 

constitute  the  mind  in  which  we  who  have  sinned  against  God 
and  been  rebellious  children  must  return  to  the  Father  of  our 
spirits  if  we  return  at  all ;  that  Christ  is  indeed  the  way  and  the 
truth  and  the  life ;  that  no  man  can  come  to  the  Father  but  by 
Him. 

In  the  way  opened  for  us  into  the  holiest  by  the  blood  of 
Christ  we  see  what  in  its  own  light  is  discerned  by  us  to  be  at 
once  a  way  into  the  holiest  and  the  only  way.  In  exercising 
faith  in  that  blood  we  are  consciously  under  a  cleansing  and 
purifying  power,  the  only  power  that  could  cleanse  and  purify 
us,  but  as  to  which  we  feel  that  it  has  in  itself  no  limit,  and  that 
its  result  in  us  will  only  be  limited  as  the  measure  of  our  being 
yielded  up  to  it  is  limited.  In  our  begun  life  of  son  ship  through 
the  faith  of  the  Son  of  God,  in  our  feeble  lisping  of  the  Father's 
name,  we  have  consciously  the  earnest  of  the  eternal  inherit- 
ance. The  perfecting  of  our  conscience  as  worshippers  by  the 
sprinkling  of  the  blood  of  Christ  we  discern  to  be  the  com- 
mencement of  that  experience  which  will  hereafter  utter  itself 
in  the  song,  "Unto  Him  that  loved  us,  and  washed  us  from  our 
sins  in  His  own  blood,  and  hath  made  us  kings  and  priests  unto 
God  and  His  Father ;  to  Him  be  glory  and  dominion  for  ever 
and  ever.     Amen." 

Finally,  when  from  thus  contemplating  the  atonement  as 
accomplished  by  Christ,  and  seeing  ourselves  in  its  light — 
realising  how  hopeless  our  state  had  been  apart  from  it,  while 
conscious  to  the  living  faith  and  hope  towards  God  which  the 
faith  of  it  is  quickening  in  us — we  lift  up  our  thoughts  to  the 
Father,  and  consider  what  the  great  work  of  redeeming  love 
has  been  to  Him,  and  hear  in  relation  to  it  the  testimony  of  the 
Father  to  the  Son,  "  This  is  my  beloved  Son  in  whom  I  am 
well  pleased,  hear  ye  Him,"  we  are,  indeed,  filled  with  the  glory  of 
God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ.  Seeing  the  Father  in  the  Son, 
the  divine  elements  of  the  work  of  the  Son  in  the  Father — that 
what  we  are  contemplating  in  Christ  is,  indeed,  but  the  perfect 
doing  of  the  Father's  will,  the  perfect  declaring  of  His  name, 
and  raised  up  by  the  faith  of  the  will  of  God  as  done,  of  the 


254  THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST,  &c. 

name  of  God  as  declared,  to  the  apprehension  of  the  Eternal 
Will,  the  Unchanging  Name,  we  understand  the  complacency 
of  the  Father  in  the  Son,  and  how  it  pleased  the  Father  to 
bruise  the  Son  and  put  Him  to  grief,  how  the  Father  saw  it 
good  to  put  into  the  hands  of  the  Son  of  His  love  the  cup  con- 
cerning which  He  had  prayed  that  if  it  were  possible  it  should 
pass  from  Him ;  we  understand  the  value  to  God  who  is  love 
of  the  manifestation  of  love  in  all  its  long-suffering,  forgiving, 
self-sacrificing  depth  and  might ;  while  yet  we  understand  that 
this  manifestation  of  love  neither  was  nor  could  have  been  but 
in  relation  to  the  results  which  were  contemplated, — that  it  was 
as  being  " bringing  many  sons  to  glory,"  that  "it  became  Him 
for  whom  are  all  things,  and  by  whom  are  all  things,  to  make 
the  Captain  of  their  salvation  perfect  through  sufferings  :"  And 
the  identity  of  the  life  of  sonship  as  seen  accomplishing  the 
atonement  and  as  partaken  in  by  men  through  participation  in 
the  atonement,  and  the  excellent  glory  of  the  hope  of  sonship 
in  its  inheriting  of  the  Father, — as  it  is  said,  "  heirs  of  God, 
heirs  of  God  and  joint  heirs  with  Christ," — are  to  us  the  full 
justification  of  the  Father  in  all  that  travail  of  the  soul  of  Christ 
of  which  our  salvation  is  the  fruit. 


255 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST  CONTEMPLATED  AS  HIS  "TASTING 
DEATH,"  AND  "  FOR  EVERY  MAN  ;  "  AND  THE  LIGHT  IT 
SHEDS  ON  HIS  LIFE,  AND  ON  THAT  FELLOWSHIP  IN  HIS 
LIFE,  THROUGH  BEING  CONFORMED  TO  HIS  DEATH,  TO  WHICH 
WE   ARE   CALLED. 

T  HAVE  nothing  to  add  in  direct  elucidation  of  the  view  now 
taken  of  the  nature  of  the  atonement  j  but  both  the  neces- 
sity for  the  perfecting  of  the  atonement  in  the  death  of  our 
Lord  on  the  cross,  which  the  fact  of  His  death  in  connexion 
with  His  prayer  in  the  garden  implies,  and  the  constant  refer- 
ence to  the  cross  as  suggestive  of  the  whole  work  of  redemption, 
are  reasons  for  presenting  here  to  the  reader's  attention  some 
thoughts  in  relation  to  the  death  of  our  Lord,  viewed  in  itself 
and  in  the  light  of  His  consciousness  in  passing  through  death, 
which  may  be  profitable,  and  especially,  practically. 

The  words  of  our  Lord  in  death,  "  Father,  into  thy  hands  I 
commend  my  spirit,"  are  given  to  help  us  to  understand  the  life 
of  sonship  which  we  are  seeing  passing  out  of  our  sight,  and  to 
reveal  to  us  in  this  its  final  triumph  the  secret  of  its  victory  all 
along.  For,  in  this  trust  in  death  we  are  not  contemplating  a 
new  manner  of  faith.  The  perfection  of  its  development  and 
measure,  of  its  manifestation  only  are  new.  The  faith  which 
this  last  utterance  of  the  voice  of  sonship  presents  to  our  faith  is 
not  anything  else  than  that  trust  in  the  Father  manifested  in  death 
which  had  pervaded  the  Lord's  whole  life  ;  for,  Christ's  following 


256  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

of  God  as  a  dear  child  walking  in  love,  always  implied  that 
direct  and  immediate  living  by  the  Father  which  these  words 
used  in  death  expressed.  He__eyer_  through  the  Eternal  Spirit 
offered  Himself  without  spot  to  God.  To  hold  and  use  this 
life  in  the  flesh  in  sonship,  and  to  yield  it  up  in  sonship,  these 
were  divers  actings  of  one  faith.  Therefore,  the  words,  "  Father, 
into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit,"  should  shed  light  back 
to  us  on  .the  whole  of  our  Lord's  path  on  earth.  There  was  a 
saying,  "  Not  my  will,  but  thine  be  done,"  a  dying  to  live,  in  all 
our  Lord's  life,  as  well  as  at  the  close. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  shame  of  the  cross  in  its  relation 
to  that  second  commandment  of  which  Christ's  perfect  brother- 
hood towards  man  was  the  fulfilment,  as  His  sonship  towards 
the  Father  was  the  fulfilment  of  the  first.  If  we  know  any- 
thing of  life  as  a  meeting  in  the  strength  of  sonship  the  call 
which  the  first  commandment  makes  on  us,  and  know  that 
rejection  of  all  independent  life  in  self  and  our  neighbour  which 
this  implies,  our  own  experience  will  help  us  in  endeavouring 
to  realise  the  oneness  of  the  faith  in  which  Christ  lived,  seeking 
not  His  own  glory  but  His  glory  who  had  sent  Him,  with  the 
faith  in  which  in  death  He  said,  "Father,  into  thy  hands  I 
commend  my  spirit."  The  Apostle  speaks  of  "  dying  daily ;  " 
and,  if  we  are  attempting  to  "follow  God  as  dear  children, 
walking  in  love,"  we  know  that  this  implies  such  a  dying  daily 
as  is  possible  only  in  a  faith  which  is  a  constant  commending 
of  our  spirit  into  the  Father's  hands.  For  lonely  as  death  is, 
not  less  lonely  is  true  life  at  its  root  and  core, — I  mean  lonely 
as  respects  the  creature,  a  being  left  alone  with  God. 

But,  while  the  faith  tried  and  proved  in  our  Lord's  tasting 
death  was  the  same  that  had  been  tried  and  proved  in  His 
whole  life,  yet  was  the  trial  peculiar  and  extreme  and  in  its 
nature  fitted  to  be  the  final  trial,  as  well  as  to  shed  light  back 
on  all  former  trials.  I  have  already  noticed  the  sinless, — I 
should  rather  say  righteous — desire  of  the  life  that  is  in  man's 
favour  which  our  Lord's  fulfilment  of  the  second  commandment 
implied,  and  which  explains  to  us  the  intenseness  of  feeling 


CONTEMPLATED  AS  HIS  "TASTING  DEATH."    257 

under  the  injustice  done  to  Him  in  men's  estimate  of  Him 
expressed  in  the  words,  "  Reproach  hath  broken  my  heart." 
In  bearing  the  contradiction  of  sinners  our  Lord  was  continually 
drinking  of  cups  which  naturally  and  sinlessly,  nay,  because  of 
love  and  therefore  righteously,  He  must  have  desired  not  to 
drink  ;  which  yet  as  presented  to  Him  by  His  Father  He  desired 
to  drink,  and  which,  in  the  strength  of  the  eternal  life  which  is 
in  the  Father's  favour,  He  did  drink. 

Now  death  itself,  as  the  close  of  life  so  lived  and  passed 
through  in  the  strength  which  the  words  reveal,  "  Father,  into 
thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit,'7  was  in  harmony  with  such  a 
life  and  its  fitting  close  ;  for  it  was  the  perfect  manifestation 
and  consummation  of  the  faith  in  the  Father  which  was  the 
secret  of  that  life.  I  say,  it  was  the  "perfect  manifestation  "  of 
that  faith,  because  it  revealed  the  strength  in  which  our  Lord 
had  been  able  to  do  without  the  honour  which  cometh  from 
man, — the  life  that  is  in  man's  favour, — and  how  it  was  that  He 
had  not  feared  those  whose  power  can  go  no  further  than  to 
kill  the  body.  The  life  which  was  common  to  them  and  to 
Him,  the  life  through  which  they  could  reach  Him  and  cause 
Him  pain,  that  life  had  conferred  upon  them  no  power  over 
His  spirit ;  for  that  life  He  had  held,  as  He  now  parted  with  it, 
in  the  strength  and  freedom  of  sonship.  I  have  also  said, 
"  consummation,"  because  it  was  the  perfected  development  of 
that  faith.  I  cannot  help  having  the  words  in  reference  to 
Abraham's  offering  up  of  Isaac  here  recalled  to  me,  "  Now  I 
know  that  thou  lovest  me."  "  By  works  was  faith  perfected." 
The  faith  that  could  offer  up  Isaac  was  there  before  it  was 
proved  ;  yet  something  further  had  come  to  pass  in  the  spirit  of 
Abraham,  and  in  the  sight  of  God,  when  it  was  proved.  So  of 
all  our  Lord's  sufferings,  in  that  though  a  Son  He  learned 
obedience  by  the  things  which  He  suffered.  The  sonship  was 
there  perfect  all  along;  yet  something  came  to  pass,  some- 
thing was  developed  in  the  humanity  of  the  Lord  in  each 
successive  outcoming  of  the  obedience  of  sonship  under  suffer- 
ing ;  something  which  the  Father  had  desired  to  see  in  humanity 


N 


258  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

and  now  saw,  and  which  the  incarnation,  simply  as  such,  had 
not  accomplished,  but  which  was  being  accomplished  as  the 
life  of  the  Son  in  humanity  progressed  under  the  Father's 
educating  of  Him  as  the  Captain  of  our  salvation.  And  if  this 
be  a  true  apprehension  as  to  the  previous  sufferings  of  the 
Lord  and  their  progressive  intensity,  so  also  must  it  be  of  His 
tasting  death.  In  substance,  in  spirit,  He  had  all  along  said, 
"  Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit."  In  actual 
death  He  now  said  so. 

The  simplest  positive  idea  which  I  am  able  to  form  of  the 
glory  given  to  the  Father,  in  saying,  in  death,  "  Father,  into  thy 
hands  I  commend  my  spirit,"  I  receive  in  realising  the  naked- 
ness of  simple  being,  stript  of  all  possession  but  what  is  possessed 
in  the  heart  of  the  Father,  which  is  suggested  to  us  as  that  in 
the  consciousness  of  which  this  trust  is  exercised.  It  is  the 
most  perfect  and  absolute  form  of  that  experience,  "  I  am  not 
alone,  for  the  Father  is  with  me."  It  takes  away  creation  and 
leaves  but  God.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  the  glory  given  to 
God  in  this  faith.  Never  does  the  Son  who  dwells  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Father,  utter  more  to  our  hearts  what  it  is  to 
possess  the  Father  as  our  Father,  and  to  be  sons  of  God,  than 
when  He  says  in  death,  "  Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commend 
my  spirit." 

And  we  must  note  that  this  is  not  said  in  simple  naked  exist- 
ence, as  it  might  be  the  utterance  of  sonship  in  a  spirit  just 
awakened  to  the  consciousness  of  existence,  knowing  yet  no 
possession  but  God  who  has  given  it  being.  It  is  an  utterance 
in  death.  He  who  thus  puts  trust  in  the  Father  is  tasting  death 
while  doing  so.  It  is  very  difficult  for  us,  though  most  desir- 
able, to  apprehend  what  this  should  add  to  our  conception  of 
that  declaring  of  the  Father's  name  which  is  in  Christ's  death. 
When  I  think  of  our  Lord  as  tasting  death  it  seems  to  me  as  if 
He  alone  ever  truly  tasted  death.  And  this,  indeed,  may  be 
received  as  a  part  of  the  larger  truth  that  He  alone  ever  lived 
in  humanity  in  the  conscious  truth  of  humanity.  But  when  I 
think  of  death  as  tasted  by  our  Lord,  how  little  help  to  conceiv- 


CONTEMPLATED  AS  HIS  « TASTING  DEATH."    259 

ing  of  His  experience  in  dying  do  any  of  our  own  thoughts  or 
anticipated  experiences  seem  fitted  to  yield !  What  men  shrink 
from  when  they  shrink  from  death,  is,  either  the  disruption  of 
the  ties  that  connect  them  with  a  present  world,  or  the  terrors 
with  which  an  accusing  conscience  fills  the  world  to  come.  The 
last  had  no  existence  for  Him  who  was  without  sin  :  neither 
had  the  world,  as  the  present  evil  world,  any  place  in  His  heart. 
And  even  as  to  that  purer  interest  in  the  present  scene,  which 
the  relationships  of  life,  cherished  aright  and  according  to 
God's  intention  in  them,  awaken,  and  the  trial  that  death  may 
be  from  this  cause,  there  was  in  our  Lord's  case  nothing  parallel 
to  it;  unless  that  care  of  His  mother,  which  He  devolved 
upon  the  beloved  disciple.  But  death,  as  death,  is  distinct  from 
such  accompanying  considerations  as  these,  and  our  Lord  tasted 
it  in  the  truth  of  that  which  it  is.  For,  as  He  had  truly  lived 
in  humanity,  and  possessed  and  used  the  gift  of  life  according 
to  the  truth  of  humanity,  so  did  He  also  truly  die ;  death  was 
to  His  humanity  the  withdrawal  of  the  gift  of  that  life  which  it 
closes.  As  men  in  life  know  not  life  as  God's  gift,  neither 
realise  what  it  is  to  live ;  so  neither  do  they  in  death  know 
God's  withdrawal  of  that  gift,  nor  consciously  realise  what  it 
is  to  die.  "  For  as  a  man  liveth,  so  he  dieth."  But  it  was 
altogether  otherwise  with  our  Lord.  It  was  a  part  of  His  sin- 
less consciousness  in  humanity  to  possess  life  in  the  pure  sense 
of  it  as  God's  gift ;  and  therefore  it  was  a  part  of  this  sinless 
consciousness  in  humanity  to  cleave  to  it — to  desire  to  retain 
it.  This  desire  was  in  Him  a  true  and  sinless  utterance 
of  humanity.  And  as  we  have  seen  in  what  truth  of  humanity, 
and  how  intensely  Christ  was  affected  by  the  malice  of  the 
wicked,  though  as  respected  the  perfection  of  His  faith  He 
could  say,  "  I  have  overcome  the  world ; "  so  are  we  to  under- 
stand that  the  eternal  life  in  which  He  passed  through  death 
did  not  make  death  as  nothing  to  Him,  but  that  the  true  con- 
ception is,  that  it  enabled  Him  perfectly  to  taste  of  death, — 
to  taste  of  it  as  was  only  possible  in  the  strength  of  eternal 
life. 


2<5o  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

Further,  as  our  Lord  alone  truly  tasted  death,  so  to  Him 
alone  had  death  its  perfect  meaning  as  the  wages  of  sin,  for  in 
Him  alone  was  there  full  entrance  into  the  mind  of  God 
towards  sin,  and  perfect  unity  with  that  mind.  We  have  seen 
before,  that  the  perfect  confession  of  our  sins  was  only  possible 
to  perfect  holiness ;  and  so  we  may  see  also,  that  the  tasting  of 
death  in  full  realisation  of  what  it  is  that  God  who  gave  life 
should  recall  it,  holding  it  forfeited,  was  only  possible  to  perfect 
holiness. 

How  much  this  thought  should  suggest  to  us  as  to  the 
bitterness  which  belonged  to  the  cup  which  Christ  drank  in 
tasting  death  for  every  man  we  may  not  measure ;  yet  we  can 
see  the  fitness  of  the  presence  of  this  element  in  Christ's  cup 
of  suffering,  and  that  His  perfect  realisation  of  the  relation  of 
death  to  sin  naturally  connected  itself  with  the  confession  of 
the  righteousness  of  the  divine  condemnation  on  sin,  and  the 
fulness  and  perfection  of  that  confession, — the  fulness  of 
meaning  of  the  response,  "Thou  art  righteous,  O  Lord,  who 
judgest  so."  For  thus,  in  Christ's  honouring  of  the  righteous 
law  of  God,  the  sentence  of  the  law  was  included,  as  well  as  the 
mind  of  God  which  that  sentence  expressed.  In  this  light  are 
we  to  see  the  death  of  Christ,  as  connected  with  His  redeeming 
those  that  were  under  the  law,  that  they  might  receive  the 
adoption  of  sons.  Had  sin  existed  in  men  as  mere  spirits, 
death  could  not  have  been  the  wages  of  sin,  and  any  response 
to  the  divine  mind  concerning  sin  which  would  have  been  an 
atonement  for  their  sin  could  only  have  had  spiritual  elements ; 
but  man  being  by  the  constitution  of  humanity  capable  of 
death,  and  death  having  come  as  the  wages  of  sin,  it  was  not 
simply  sin  that  had  to  be  dealt  with,  but  an  existing  law  with 
its  penalty  of  death,  and  that  death  as  already  incurred.  So  it 
was  not  only  the  divine  mind  that  had^tq  be  responded  to,  but 
also  that  expression  of  the  divine  mind  which  was  contained  in 
God's  making  death  the  wages  of  sin. 

This  honouring  of  the  law,  while  it  was  being  made  to  give 
place  to  that  higher  dispensation  to  which  it  was  subordinate 


CONTEMPLATED  AS  HIS  "TASTING  DEATH."    261 

from  the  first  in  the  divine  purpose,  being  also  subordinate  in 
its  own  nature  has,  indeed,  been  followed  out  to  its  fullest 
measure,  in  that  our  Lord  not  only  tasted  death,  but,  that  that 
death  was  the  death  of  the  cross, — as  the  Apostle  says,  "  Christ 
hath  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law,  being  made  a  curse 
for  us :  for  it  is  written,  Cursed  is  every  one  that  hangeth  on  a 
tree."  Galatians  hi.  13.  He  who  endured  the  cross,  despising 
the  shame,  did  so  as  He  tasted  death,  of  which  the  cross  was 
for  this  reason  the  selected  form,  in  that  oneness  of  mind  with 
God  which  rendered  His  doing  so  truly  a  fitting  element  in  the 
atonement;  and  thus  in  respect  even  of  all  that  was  most 
physical  and  external,  the  real  value  and  virtue  was  strictly 
7  /  moral  and  spiritual :  for  the  tasting  of  death  for  us  was  not  as  \f 
a  substitute, — otherwise  He  jilone  would  have  died  :  nor  as  a 
punishment, — for,  tasted  in  the  strength  of  righteousness  and 
of  the  Father's  favour,  death  had  to  Him  no  sting ;  but  as  a 
moral  and  spiritual  sacrifice  for  sin.  And  thus,  as  I  have  said 
above,  while  death  taking  place  simply  as  such,  and  the  wages 
of  sin,  had  been  no  atonement,  neither  could  come  to  be 
through  the  subjection  to  it  of  the  countless  millions  of  our 
sinful  race,  death  filled  with  that  moral  and  spi?'itual  meaning 
in  relation  to  God  and  His  righteous  law  which  it  had  as  tasted 
by  Christ,  and  passed  through  in  the  spirit  of  sons  hip,  was  the 
perfecting  of  the  atonement.  That  personally  our  Lord  was 
conscious  to  perfect  freedom  in  relation  to  death,  "  Therefore 
doth  my  Father  love  me,  because  I  lay  down  my  life,  that  I 
might  take  it  again.  No  man  taketh  it  from  me,  but  I  lay  it 
down  of  myself.  I  have  power  to  lay  it  down,  and  I  have 
power  to  take  it  again.  This  commandment  have  I  received  of 
my  Father,"  John  x,  17,  18;  this  accords  with  the  difference 
between  death  coming  as  the  wages  of  sin,  and  passing  upon 
all  men,  for  that  all  have  sinned,  and  death  as  tasted  by  the 
Son  of  God;  tasted  in  the  strength  of  eternal  life,  not  as  a 
punishment,  but,  on  behalf  of  men  in  righteous  Amen  to  the 
judgment  on  sin,  of  which  as  the  wages  of  sin  death  is  the 
expression. 

u 


262  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

In  this  view  we  see  the  suitableness  of  the  awfully  solemn 
circumstances  with  which  it  seemed   right   to  the  Father  to 
accompany  the  death  of  Christ.     That  darkness,  which  the 
evangelists  record  to  have  been  over  the  earth  from  the  sixth 
hour  to  the  ninth  hour,  has   been  regarded  as  what  in  the 
natural  world  harmonised  with  and  was  intended  to  symbolize, 
what  was  taking  place  in  the  spiritual  world,  when  the  vials  of 
the  Father's  wrath  were  pouring  out  on  the  Son.     Minds  in 
which  this  association  has  long  found  a  place  will  not  easily 
receive  any  other  explanation  of  that  darkness,  as  any  other 
explanation  must  be  felt  to  come  so  infinitely  short  of  that 
most  awful  and  terrible  conception.     Yet  in  itself,  and  apart 
from  this  association  as  already  in  possession  of  the  mind,  this 
darkness  no  more  than  accords  with  the  presence  and  place  of 
our  sins  as  borne  on  the  spirit  of  the  Redeemer,  in  that  awful 
though  blessed  peace-making  the  elements  of  which  we  have 
been  considering,   and  which  had   its  consummation  on  the 
cross ;  while  the  language  of  the  Roman  centurion  under  the 
power  of  the  whole  scene,  when  the  baptism  in  the  prospect  of 
which  the  Lord  was  so  straitened  received  its  accomplishment, 
"  Surely  this  was  the  Son  of  God,"  recalls  to  us  the  testimony 
of  the  voice  from  heaven  at  His  baptism  by  John  in  Jordan, 
"  This  is  my  beloved  Son," — recalls  this  testimony  to  us  as  one 
with  that  which  reached  the  spirit  of  the  centurion,  making 
itself  heard  in  spite  of  the  permitted  hour  and  power  of  dark- 
ness, and  prevailing  over  the  seeming  meaning  of  that  hour. 
We  can  indeed  have  no  difficulty,  apart  from  a  fixed  habit  of 
thought,  in  seeing  the  harmony  of  the  darkness  recorded,  with 
the  relation  of  Christ's  death  to  our  sins  as  that  relation  has 
now  been  represented :  while  the  response  from  the  spirit  of 
the  centurion  to  that  which  was  the  true  expression  of  the  awful 
scene  as  a  whole  accords  with  the  unbroken  and  continuous 
acknowledgment  of  the  Son  by  the  Father  implied  in  the  con- 
ception of  the  atonement,  as  altogether  and  throughout,  "  Grace 
reigning  through  righteousness  unto  eternal  life." 

Realising  the  relation  of  the  death  of  Christ  to  our  sins,  we 


CONTEMPLATED  AS  HIS  "TASTING  DEATH."    263 

thus  feel  all  that  was  dark  and  terrible  in  the  circumstances  of 
His  death  justified  to  our  minds ;  while  the  peace  in  which  He 
is  seen  tasting  death  illustrates  to  us  the  life  of  sonship  in 
which  He  does  so.  But,  realising  further,  that  He  who  is 
putting  this  peaceful  trust  in  the  Father  in  death  is  "  by  the 
grace  of  God  tasting  death  for  every  man,"  we  are  learning 
much  more  than  how  the  spirit  of  sonship  can  trust  the  Father 
even  in  death,  though  this  by  itself  is  a  most  important  lesson, 
fitted  to  help  us  to  realise  the  truth  of  our  relations  to  God  as 
"  He  on  whose  being  our  being  reposes."  This  we  are  learn- 
ing, but  we  are  further  learning  how  adequate  and  accepted  the 
atonement  for  our  sins  which,  in  tasting  death  for  us,  the  Son 
of  God  is  perfecting,  is  in  His  own  consciousness  before  the 
Father.  That  relation  to  us  in  which  the  Son  of  God  is  seen 
tasting  death — which  relation,  indeed,  alone  explains  His  being 
tasting  death  at  all — gives  this  largeness  of  reference  to  the 
words,  "  Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit,  as  we 
have  seen  in  considering  the  22nd  Psalm.  And  so  we  are  to 
connect  the  words  just  quoted  as  to  our  Lord's  personal 
freedom  in  relation  to  death,  "  Therefore  doth  my  Father  love 
me,  because  I  lay  down  my  life  that  I  might  take  it  again," 
with  the  words,  "Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground 
and  die,  it  abideth  alone ;  but  if  it  die,  it  bringeth  forth  much 
fruit."  And  "  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me," 
John  xii.  24,  32. 

Therefore,  in  endeavouring  to  conceive  of  our  Lord's  con- 
sciousness in  cherishing  this  hope  in  death  in  humanity,  and  in 
relation  to  all  humanity,  that  is,  as  a  hope  which  His  death  was 
opening  up  to  all  men,  we  must  have  before  our  minds  the 
atoning  elements  present  in  that  consciousness  as  entering  into 
that  hope;  for  upon  this  depends  the  measure  in  which  the 
death  of  Christ  shall  be  filled  for  us  with  the  light  of  life. 
Faith,  it  is  said,  will  be  imputed  to  us  for  righteousness,  "  if  we 
believe  on  Him  that  raised  up  Jesus  our  Lord  from  the  dead ; 
who  was  delivered  for  our  offences,  and  was  raised  again  for 
our  justification."     Therefore,  the  faith  in  God  by  which  we 


264  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

become  righteous  must  embrace  our  seeing  our  sins  in  the 
light  shed  upon  them  by  the  death  of  Christ,  and  our  seeing 
our  justification  in_the  light  shed  upon  it  by  His  resurrection 
from  the  dead. 

And  the  first  part  ef  this  statement  is  presupposed  in  the 
second.  We  cannot  understand  the  ground  of  confidence  for 
us  in  God  which  Christ's  resurrection  from  the  dead  reveals, 
unless  we  understand  the  mind  of  God  in  relation  to  our  sins 
which  His  death  reveals,  and  in  response  to  which  He  tasted 
death  for  us.  That  ground  of  confidence  in  the  heart  of  the 
Father,  because  with  that  heart  the  words  deal,  "  Father,  into 
thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit;"  but  the  death  itself,  no  less 
than  the  hope  in  death,  is  an  element  in  the  Son's  revelation  of 
the  Father ;  and  unless  that  revelation  is  seen  in  that  death,  as 
well  as  in  that  hope  in  death,  the  true  confidence  of  sonship  to 
which  that  hope  in  death  calls  is  not  understood.  The  con- 
demnation of  our  sin  in  that  expiatory  confession  of  our  sin 
which  was  perfected  in  the  death  of  Christ  is  not  less  a  part  of 
the  revelation  of  the  Father  by  the  Son  than  the  trust  in  the 
depths  of  fatherliness  in  which  life  was  asked  and  received  for 
us.  Indeed,  these  are  ultimately  but  two  aspects  of  one  mind 
of  God  who  must  condemn  our  life  as  rebellious  children 
according  as  He  chooses  for  us  and  desires  for  us  the  life  of 
true  sonship. 

IOur  being  planted  in  the  likeness  or  fellowship  of  Christ's 
death  is,  therefore,  a  prerequisite  to  our  fellowship  in  His 
resurrection  from  the  dead.  For,  not  only  was  His  death  no 
substitute  for  our  death — superseding  the  necessity  for  our 
dying, — but,  more  than  this,  His  death,  as  differing  from  death 
coming  as  the  wages  of  sin, — His  death  as  a  propitiation  for 
sin,  tasted  in  the  spirit  of  sonship,  and  in  unity  with  the  Father 
in  His  condemnation  of  sin,  that  is  to  say,  death,  as  tasted  by 
Christ, — must  be  not  only  apprehended  by  our  faith,  but  also 
spiritually  shared  in  by  us.  And  such  participation  in  the  death 
of  Christ  is,  because  of  the  unity  that  is  in  His  life  and  death, 
necessarily  implied  in  receiving  Christ  as  our  life  ;  for  the  mind 


CONTEMPLATED  AS  HIS  "TASTING  DEATH."    265 

in  which_He  died  is  the  mind  in  which  He  lived,  and^that  con- 
demnation_  of  sin  in  the  flesh,  which  was  perfected  and  fully  told 
out  in  His  death,  pervaded  His  life.  Therefore  is  our  "bearing 
about  in  the  body  the  dying  of  the  Lord  Jesus,"  implied  in  "the 
life  of  Jesus  being  manifested  in  our  mortal  bodies."  Therefore 
must  we,  knowing  Christ,  and  experiencing  the  power  of  His 
resurrection  from  the  dead  as  what  enables  us  to  have  faith  and 
hope  in  God,  have  fellowship  in  Christ 's  sufferings,  and  be  con- 
formed to  His  death. 

The  close  and  direct  consideration  of  the  death  of  Christ, 
and  of  His  consciousness  in  tasting  death  for  every  man,  saying, 
"  Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit,"  now  attempted, 
may,  as  I  have  said,  help  us  practically;  illustrating  the  directly 
and  absolutely  practical  aspect  in  which  the  cross  of  Christ  is 
contemplated  in  the  Scriptures.  I  have  already  noticed  how 
we  are  taught  by  the  hope  for  men  expressed  in  the  22nd  psalm, 
in  connexion  with  God's  hearing  the  cry  of  the  afflicted  and 
not  hiding  His  face  from  him,  that  that  fathdrliness  in  God,  in 
which  the  Sinless  One  is  trusting,  is  a  fatherliness  in  which  the 
sinful  may  trust.  It  is  in  the  light  of  the  confession  of  our  sins 
as  one  aspect  of  the  life  of  sonship  in  Christ — that  side,  as  I 
have  said  above,  on  which  the  life  of  Christ  is  nearest  us — that 
this  is  clear  to  us.  That  confession  being  understood,  we  feel 
that  in  receiving  it,  as  a  part  of  the  mind  of  Christ,  to  be  in  us 
and  be  our  own  mind,  we  can  freely  breathe  the  life  of  sonship 
as  confidence  towards  the  Father, — we  can  share  in  the  mind 
which  the  words  express,  "  Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commend 
my  spirit ; "  we  can  share  in  that  mind,  both  as  it  was  through 
life  the  inmost  element  in  the  victory  of  the  Son  of  God  over 
the  world,  and  as  it  was  His  victorious  peace  in  death.  Acting 
on  this  apprehension,  taking  to  ourselves  this  confession,  and 
saying  Amen  to  it,  entering  by  this  path  into  the  liberty  of 
sonship,  and  in  that  liberty  meeting  life  and  meeting  death,  we 
come  to  know  in  ourselves  what  the  Apostle  meant  when  He 
said,  "  God  forbid  that  I  should  glory,  save  in  the  cross  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  by  whom  the  world  is  crucified  unto  me,  and 


266  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

T  unto  the  world,"  Galatians  vi.  14.  The  fleshly  life  which 
the  death  of  Christ  condemns,  the  spiritual  life  which  Christ's 
hope  in  death  commends  to  our  spirits,  these  are  present  to  us 
in  the  enlightened  contemplation  of  Christ  as  dying  that  we 
might  live;  and,  therefore,  our  uniting  in  the  condemnation 
that  His  death  expresses  in  relation  to  the  life  which  it  con- 
demns, welcoming  that  life  to  be  our  life  which  His  hope  in 
death  reveals  and  commends, — this,  and  our  receiving  Christ 
as  our  Saviour,  are  one  and  the  same  movement  of  our  being, 
— a  practical  movement  in  the  deepest  sense, — a  choice  of  the 
will,  not  as  to  acts,  but  as  to  life, — a  choosing  the  life  given  to 
us  in  Christ  that  we  may  live ;  being  that  same  practical  judg- 
ment which  the  Apostle  Paul  expresses  when  he  says,  "  For  the 
love  of  Christ  constraineth  us ;  because  we  thus  judge,  that  if 
one  died  for  all,  then  were  all  dead  " — or,  rather,  then  have  all 
died, — "  and  that  He  died  for  all,  that  they  which  live  should 
not  henceforth  live  unto  themselves,  but  unto  Him  which  died 
for  them,  and  rose  again."  2  Cor.  v.  14,  15.  And  the  Apostle 
Peter  also,  when  he  says,  "  Forasmuch  then  as  Christ  hath 
suffered  for  us  in  the  flesh,  arm  yourselves  likewise  with  the 
same  mind.  For  He  that  hath  suffered  in  the  flesh  hath  ceased 
from  sin ;  that  He  no  longer  should  live  the  rest  of  His  time  in  the 
flesh  to  the  lusts  of  men,  but  to  the  will  of  God."  1  Peter  iv.  1,  2, 
How  such  practical  living  dealing  with  the  cross  of  Christ 
as  these  quotations  express,  will  confirm  us  in  the  faith  to  which 
it  belongs ;  how  the  "  bearing  about  in  the  body  the  dying  of 
the  Lord  Jesus,"  and  "  the  manifestation  of  the  life  of  Jesus  in 
our  mortal  bodies,"  will  progress  together  and  deepen  in  inten- 
sity ;  how  the  counsel  of  God  in  connecting  us  with  Christ  as 
He  has  done,  and  identifying  us  with  Him  in  His  death,  and  in 
His  resurrection  from  the  dead,  will  be  more  and  more  clearly 
seen  to  be  to  the  glory  of  God  according  as  we  are  conforming 
to  this  gracious  constitution  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  dead  in 
the  death  of  Christ,  and  living  that  life  which  we  have  hid  with 
Christ  in  God, — this,  in  the  light  of  the  atonement  as  now 
represented,  we  easily  understand. 


CONTEMPLATED  AS  HIS  "TASTING  DEATH."    267 

But  one  caution  my  reader  will  here  bear  from  me,  supposing 
the  teaching  of  these  pages  to  be  commending  itself  to  his 
understanding,  and  so  to  be  giving  me  some  claim  on  his 
weighing  what  I  urge — viz.  that  it  is  the  conscience  much  more 
than  the  understanding  that  is  concerned  in  a  right  reception  of 
teaching,  which,  if  true  at  all,  is  pre-eminently,  and  in  the  deepest 
sense,  practical  leaching.  I  shall  not  feel  it  nothing  that  the 
argument  should  commend  itself;  but  this  consent  of  the 
understanding  is  a  small  matter  unless  the  conscience  feel,  that 
that  is  presented  to  it  which  has  power  to  purge  it  from  dead 
works,  to  serve  the  living  God; — unless  the  spirit  which  has. 
dwelt  in  the  darkness  and  death  of  sin,  see  the  path  of  life  open 
before  it,  shining  in  the  light  of  the  divine  favour ;  unless  the 
orphan  spirit  find  itself  brought  into  the  presence  of  its  long 
lost  Father,  who  is  waiting  to  receive  it  graciously,  whose  heart 
yearns  to  hear  it  cry,  Abba,  Father.  To  this  result  it  is  as 
necessary  that  the  death  of  Christ,  as  filled  with  the  divine 
judgment  on  sin,  shall  commend  itself  to  the  conscience,  as 
that  the  life  of  Christ  and  His  resurrection  from  the  dead, 
revealing  the  hope  which,  when  we  had  destroyed  ourselves, 
remained  for  us  in  God,  shall  so  commend  itself. 

And  let  no  man  deceive  himself,  as  if  it  were  his  experience 
that  conscience  responded  to  the  latter  revelation,  and  welcomed 
the  light  of  life,  while  it  responded  not  to  the  former,  nor  said 
"Amen"  to  that  amen  to  the  divine  judgment  in  relation  to 
sin  which  was  in  the  death  of  Christ,  and  gave  it  its  atoning 
virtue.  That  would  be  to  say  that  light  may  be  light,  and  yet 
not  make  the  darkness  manifest.  I  have  dwelt  above  on  the 
fixedness  of  that  law  of  the  kingdom  of  God  which  the  words 
express, — "  No  man  cometh  to  the  Father  but  by  the  Son." 
But  no  man  cometh  by  the  Son  who  cometh  not  in  the  fellow- 
ship of  His  death, — "  Thou  hast  washed  us  in  thy  blood,  and 
made  us  kings  and  priests  unto  God." 

The  deep  and  awful  impression  of  what  sin  must  be  in  the 
eyes  of  God,  which  men  have  received  while  contemplating  the 
sufferings  of  Christ  for  our  sins  as  His  having  the  vials  of  divine 


268  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

wrath  poured  out  on  Him,  has  been  recognised  above  as  in 
itself  a  great  gain,  notwithstanding  the  darkness  in  which  the 
mind  of  God  towards  sin  and  sinners  was  left  by  that  view,  and 
even  the  positive  misconception  which  it  contained.  So  real  a 
gain  has  that  deep  and  awful  impression  on  the  subject  of  sin 
been,  that  it  would  be  an  indication  of  having  gone  out  of  the 
right  path  to  find  that  we  are  parting  with  it.  But,  assuredly, 
not  less  profound  or  awful,  while  accompanied  by  a  light  of  the 
glory  of  God  not  seen  in  that  other  system,  is  the  sense  of  the 
evil  and  guilt  of  sin  which  is  received  when  the  sufferings  of 
Christ  become  to  our  minds  not  the  measure  of  what  God  can 
inflict,  but  the  revelation  of  what  God  feels ;  that  which  the  Son 
of  God  in  our  nature  has  felt  in  oneness  with  the  Father,  that 
into  the  fellowship  of  which  He  calls  us  in  calling  us  to  be  sons 
of  God. 

I  freely  confess  that  to  my  own  mind  it  is  a  relief,  not  only 
intellectually,  but  also  morally  and  spiritually,  to  see  that  there 
is  no  foundation  for  the  conception  that  when  Christ  suffered 
for  us,  the  just  for  the  unjust,  He  suffered  either  "as  by 
imputation  unjust,"  or  "  as  if  He  were  unjust."  I  admit  that 
intellectually  it  is  a  relief  not  to  be  called  to  conceive  to  myself 
a  double  consciousness  both  in  the  Father  and  in  the  Son,  such 
as  seems  implied  in  the  Father's  seeing  the  Son  at  one  and  the 
same  time,  though  it  were  but  for  a  moment,  as  the  well- 
beloved  Son  to  whom  infinite  favour  should  go  forth,  and  also 
as  worthy  in  respect  of  the  imputation  of  our  sins  to  Him  of 
being  the  object  of  infinite  wrath,  He  being  the  object  of  such 
wrath  accordingly  ;  and  in  the  Son's  knowing  Himself  the  well- 
beloved  of  the  Father,  and  yet  having  the  consciousness  of 
being  personally  through  imputation  of  our  sin  the  object  of  the 
Father's  wrath.  I  feel  it  intellectually  a  relief  neither  to  be 
called  to  conceive  this,  nor  to  assume  it  as  an  unconceived 
mystery.  Still  more  do  I  feel  it  morally  and  spiritually  a  relief 
not  to  be  required  to  recognise  legal  fictions  as  having  a  place 
in  this  high  region  ;  in  which  the  awful  realities  of  sin  and  holi- 
ness,  spiritual  death  and  spiritual  life,  are  the  subjects  of  a 


CONTEMPLATED  AS  HIS  "TASTING  DEATH."    269 

transaction  between  the  Father  and  the  Son  in  the  Eternal 
Spirit.  And  though  it  may  seem  to  some  that  this  admission 
may  excuse  in  the  reader  the  fear  that  I  have  been  less  free  of 
bias  in  considering  this  subject  than  was  desirable,  and  that  I 
have  been  less  able  to  weigh  justly  the  claims  of  the  system 
which  I  have  rejected,  in  proportion  as  I  feel  it  a  relief  to  be 
justified  in  concluding  that  it  is  not  true,  I  must  still  in  fairness 
make  the  admission. 

But  while  so  many,  as  we  have  seen  above,  of  those  who 
believe  in  an  atonement  have  latterly  made  the  same  avowal  on 
the  subject  of  imputation,  and  transferred  guilt,  and  merit,  that 
I  now  make, — to  whom  therefore  this  avowal  on  my  part  will 
be  no  source  of  distrust  as  to  the  conclusions  at  which  I  have 
arrived, — it  is  to  my  own  mind  an  additional  source  of  freedom 
of  feeling,  besides  the  positive  weight  of  the  intellectual  and 
moral  difficulties  involved  in  the  system  which  I  am  rejecting, 
that  the  conception  of  the  nature  of  the  atonement  which  I 
have  seemed  to  myself  to  receive  in  seeking  to  see  it  by  its  own 
light  is  altogether  independent  of  the  question  of  imputation, 
neither  needs  the  denial  of  imputation  for  its  commendation. 
Whatever  be  supposed  to  have  been  the  nature  of  the  link 
between  Christ  and  our  sins,  it  was  needful  that  He  should  on 
our  behalf  deal  with  the  righteous  wrajth  of  God  against  sin  in 
that  way  which  accorded  with  the  eternal  and  unchanging  truth 
of  things.  And  that  which  has  now  been  represented  as  the 
way  in  which  He  has  actually  done  so,  commends  itself,  as  I 
have  said  above,  as  what  would  still  have  been  the  right  and 
God-glorifying  way  had  the  identification  of  Christ  with  us  and 
our  sins  been  of  a  nature  to  justify  even  the  boldest  and  most 
unbelievable  language  ever  ventured  on  this  subject.  The 
point  of  divergence  of  the  two  conceptions  of  the  atonement  is 
that  at  which,  as  we  have  seen,  President  Edwards  stood  when 
these  two  ways  of  satisfying  divine  justice  in  relation  to  sin 
were  together  before  his  mind,  viz.,  an  infinite  punishment  and 
an  adequate  repentance.  Had  these  alternatives  been  dwelt 
on,  even  in  connexion  with  that  manner  of  taking  of  the  place 


2/0  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

of  those  whom  He  came  to  save  on  the  part  of  Christ  which 
Edwards  conceived  of,  the  latter  alternative  would  have  com- 
mended itself  as  most  to  the  glory  of  God ;  although  its  claim 
to  be,  as  I  hold,  the  only  satisfaction  to  divine  justice  that 
could  be  called  an  atonement  or  propitiation  were  not  at  once 
perceived ;  for  it  would  be  felt  to  be  the  higher  and  more  real 
satisfaction  to  the  divine  righteousness,  while  the  former  could 
be  contemplated  only  as  an  infinitely  unwelcome  necessity. 

But  these  alternatives  could  not  be  fully  realised,  and  their 
different  natures  considered,  without  the  mind's  being  led  to 
that  perception  of  the  deep  and  fundamental  distinction 
between  the  conception  of  Christ's  enduring  as  a  substitute  the 
penalty  of  sin,  and  Christ's  making  in  humanity  the  due  moral 
and  spiritual  atonement  for  sin;  and  this  perception,  once 
reached,  would  have  commanded  for  the  truth  the  assent  both 
of  the  understanding  and  of  the  conscience,  and  would  have 
claimed  for  it  all  the  varied  expressions  of  Scripture  on  the 
subject  as  what,  although  they  had  clothed  another  conception 
in  men's  systems,  belonged  of  right  to  it,  and  expressed  it — and 
it  alone — naturally  and  truly. 

It  would  be  a  suitable  and  satisfactory  sequel  to  what  I  have 
now  presented  to  the  reader's  attention  to  examine  all  those 
portions  of  Scripture  which  are  most  identified  in  men's  minds 
with  the  conception  of  the  atonement  as  penal  suffering 
endured  by  Christ  as  our  substitute,  and  to  show  how  much 
more  naturally  they  express  a  moral  and  spiritual  atonement, 
and  how  they  are  by  the  conception  of  such  an  atonement 
filled  with  light ;  but  I  must  satisfy  myself  for  the  present  with 
what  I  have  incidentally  done  in  this  way  already.  Nor, 
assuming  the  view  expounded  to  be  truth,  can  the  reader  who 
has  fully  received  it  have  difficulty  in  doing  this  for  himself. 
Of  the  passages  to  which  I  refer,  those  as  to  which  I  would 
most  urge  the  reader  to  engage  in  this  task  are  those  in  which 
the  death  of  Christ  is  made  the  measure  of  the  evil  of  sin : 
earnestly  desiring  as  I  do  that  His  death  may  be  that  measure 
to  our  spirits,  and  feeling  that  it  never  can  be  so  as  God  has 


CONTEMPLATED  AS  HIS  "TASTING  DEATH."    271 

intended,  unless  we  are  understanding  our  calling  to  die  to  sin 
in  the  fellowship  of  His  death,  unless  to  us,  as  to  the  Apostle, 
to  "  win  Christ,  and  be  found  in  Him  not  having  our  own 
righteousness,  which  is  of  the  law,  but  that  which  is  through  the 
faith  of  Christ,  the  righteousness  which  is  of  God  by  faith,"  be 
identified  with  "  knowing  Christ,  and  the  power  of  His  resur- 
rection, and  the  fellowship  of  His  sufferings,  being  made 
conformable  to  His  death." 


272 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

COMPARATIVE  COMMENDATION  OF  THE  VIEW  NOW  TAKEN  OF 
THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT  AS  TO  (i)  LIGHT,  (2) 
UNITY  AND  SIMPLICITY,  (3)  A  NATURAL  RELATION  TO 
CHRISTIANITY,  AND  (4)  HARMONY  WITH  THE  DIVINE 
RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

TV /T  Y  conception  of  the  nature  of  the  atonement  and  of  its 
relation  to  the  remission  of  sins  and  the  gift  of  eternal 
life  being  now  before  my  readers,  I  might  stop  here,  and  leave 
it  to  receive  that  measure  of  consideration  which,  in  the  naked 
statement  of  it,  it  may  be  felt  to  claim  for  itself.  If  it  come 
with  that  self-evidencing  light  to  others  with  which  it  has  come 
to  me,  it  will  not  only  commend  itself  as  the  truth,  but  also  by 
its  light,  reveal  the  root  of  error  in  any  erroneous  view  which  it 
may  find  in  possession  of  the  mind.  Yet  I  cannot  conclude 
without  pointedly  directing  attention  to  some  of  the  aspects  in 
which  it  contrasts  with  the  system  with  which  it  will  be  most 
compared. 

1.  Understanding  the  words  "Lo,  I  come  to  do  thy  will,  O 
God,"  to  be  the  key  to  the  atonement,  and  to  contemplate  that 
Eternal  *\rill  of  God,  in  respect  of  which  it  is  true  that  "  God  is 
love  f  and  that  therefore  the  doing  of  this  will  by  Christ  is  to 
be  seen  in  this,  that  love  was  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  the  life 
that  was  in  Him  which  took  form  in  its  outcomings  according 
to  its  own  nature,  and  as  the  path  in  which  the  Father  led  Him 
gave  it  development  and  manifestation, — the  conception  of  the 


COMMENDATION  OF  THE  VIEW,  &c.  273 

atonement  received  in  tracing  the  work  of  redemption,  has  been 
full  of  light. 

For,  however  imperfectly  I  have  executed  the  high  task 
which  I  have  attempted,  I  hope  it  has  been  felt  that  the  path  in 
which  I  have  led  the  reader  has  been  one  in  which  the  mind 
has  advanced  in  conscious  light.  I  do  not,  of  course,  mean 
the  light  of  the  conviction  that  what  I  have  set  forth  as  the 
atonement  has  been  the  atonement;  this  has  been  my  own 
consciousness,  and  may,  I  trust,  have  been  that  of  many  of  my 
readers :  but  I  mean  a  conviction  distinct  from  this,  and  which, 
I  hope,  has  been  felt  even  when  that  further  conviction  may  not 
have  been  imparted,  viz.  the  conviction  that  all  the  elements  of 
the  work  of  Christ  stated,  were  really  present  in  that  work  ;  are 
seen  clearly  to  have  arisen  out  of  the  life  that  was  in  Him ;  and 
are  all  what,  in  the  light  of  that  life,  we  can  as  to  their  nature 
understand,  though  their  measure  be  beyond  the  grasp  of  our 
capacity.  For  this  has  been  so,  whether  these  elements  in  the 
work  of  Christ  do,  or  do  not,  constitute  its  atoning  virtue. 

Now  this  is  an  important  point  of  contrast  between  what  has 
now  been  taught  and  the  conception  of  the  atonement  as 
Christ's  being,  in  respect  of  the  imputation  of  our  sins,  the 
object  of  the  Father's  wrath ;  and  so  bearing,  as  our  substitute, 
the  punishment  of  our  sins.  Whatever  light  may  be  recognised 
in  that  system  as  shining  from  the  work  of  Christ  as  a  whole,  the 
great  central  fact  in  it  is  so  represented,  as  to  remain  necessarily 
shrouded  in  darkness.  But  what  our  Lord  would  feel  in  bear- 
ing our  sins  as  His  doing  so  has  now  been  represented,  we  can 
in  measure  enter  into;  and  that,  too,  a  measure  which  must 
enlarge,  as  the  life  of  Christ  progresses  in  us :  while,  as  to  its 
fulness,  as  it  is  our  blessedness,  in  contemplating  the  work  of 
our  redemption,  to  be  occupied  with  the  height,  and  depth,  and 
breadth,  and  length  of  a  love  which  passes  knowledge;  so  is  it 
also  to  an  experience  of  suffering  and  self-sacrifice  on  our 
behalf,  which  passes  knowledge,  that  our  faith  is  directed ;  the 
measure  as  well  as  the  nature  of  Christ's  sufferings  being  that 
of  the  divine  love  which  experienced  them. 


274    COMMENDATION  OF  THE  VIEW  NOW  TAKEN 

But  the  difference  is  immense,  even  the  difference  between 
light  and  darkness,  between  hiowing  in  measure  what  passeth 
knowledge,  and  not  knowing  at  all;  and  this,  and  nothing  less,  is 
the  difference  between  knowing,  as  to  their  nature,  the  elements 
of  Christ's  sufferings,  being  ourselves  called  to  the  fellowship  of 
them,  and  knowing  nothing  of  their  nature  at  all.  And, 
assuredly,  whatever  elements  of  Christ's  sufferings  are  still  held 
to  be  what  we  are  to  understand  and  to  share  in,  that  special 
suffering  which  was  proper  to  the  assumed  consciousness  of 
having  our  sin  imputed  to  Him  and  its  punishment  inflicted  on 
Him,  that  which  is  represented  as  the  personal  sense  of  the 
Father's  wrath  coming  out  on  Him  personally, — the  wrath  of 
God  coming  forth  on  the  Son  of  His  love  :  this  is,  and  must  be 
to  us,  simply  darkness — a  horror  of  darkness,  without  one  ray 
of  light. 

The  conception  that  Christ  suffered  as  our  substitute — so  by 
His  suffering  superseding  the  necessity  for  our  sufferi?ig,  itself 
implies  that  the  sufferings  of  His  which  such  expressions  con- 
template, must  remain  in  their  nature  unknown  to  us;  an 
experience  in  our  Lord's  humanity  which,  though  it  has  been 
experience  in  humanity,  we  have  not  been  intended  to  share  in  :  ( 

conception  that  seems  to  me  improbable  in  the  bare  state- 
Lent  of  it.  For  an  experience  of  the  Son  of  God  in  humanity 
not  within  reach  of  man's  vision  as  partaking  in  the  divine 
nature  is  to  me  what  there  is  a  strong  presumption  against. 
How  much  that  deeply-meditating  believer  in  Christ,  President 
Edwards,  has  ventured  to  expect  in  the  way  of  understanding 
the  elements  of  Christ's  sufferings,  we  have  seen  above ;  while 
we  have  also  seen  how  unsuited  to  his  conception  of  their  being 
penal  sufferings  the  sufferings  which  he  has  specified  are, 
though  altogether  in  accordance  with  the  conception  of  the 
atonement  now  advocated.  But  all  beyond  what  he  has  thus 
specified,  which  the  words  "  the  Father's  wrath "  may  be 
expected  to  suggest,  however  awful  it  must  be  supposed  to  be, 
must  be  felt  to  remain — necessarily  to  remain — unconceived  of. 
Men's  minds  are  indeed  accustomed  to  this  darkness  as  resting 


sic  —  /^v^jfiUt^^  u^ 

OF  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.   275 

upon  the  central  point  in  the  great  work  of  redemption.  Yet 
surely  it  is  a  presumption  in  favour  of  the  view  of  the  atone- 
ment now  taken,  that  it  makes  that  central  point  no  longer 
darkness,  but  light — the  light  of  the  life  of  Christ  concentrated 
in  His  death ;  or  rather  present  in  His  death,  in  a  fulness 
which  sheds  back  light  on  all  His  life. 

2.  The  lifeiif  Christ  being  the  light  of  life  to  us,  and  the 
atonement  being  the  form  of. that  life,  it  must  needs  be  light, 
and  not  darkness.  That  which  sheds  light  on  all  else  must 
needs  be  light  in  itself,  and  be  visible  in  its  own  light ;  as  we 
npTonly  see~all  things  by  the  light  of  the  sun,  but  also  the  sun 
itself.  Further,  that  in  the  nature  of  the  atonement  which 
imparts  to  it  this  character  of  light,  also  imparts  that  of 
^simplicity  and  unity. 

Although  I  have  found  it  necessary  to  consider  the  work  of 
Christ  in  the  two  aspects  of  a  dealing  with  man  on  the  part  of 
God,  and  with  God  on  behalf  of  man ;  and  in  the  two 
references  of  a  retrospective  relation  to  the  remission  of  sins, 
and  a  prospective  relation  to  the  gift  of  eternal  life ;  I  trust  the 
unity  and  simplicity  and  natural  character  of  a  life  has  been 
felt  to  belong  to  all  that  has  been  thus  traced.  It  is  all  grace 
reigning  through  righteousness  unto  eternal  life.  All  is  in 
harmony  with  the  purpose  "  Lo,  I  come  to  do  thy  will,  O  God;" 
and  is  its  natural  development  terminating  in  its  perfect  accom- 
plishment. An  unbroken  testimony  on  the  part  of  the  Father 
to  the  beloved  Son  in  whom  He  is  well  pleased ;  an  unbroken 
consciousness  in  the  Son  as  hearing  the  Father's  voice,  abiding 
in  the  Father's  love,  strong  in  the  strength  of  the  life  that  is  in 
the  Father's  favour,  able  to  drink  the  cup  of  suffering  given 
Him  to  drink  because  receiving  it  from  His  Father's  hand,  the 
last  utterance  of  His  inner  life  in  man's  hearing  being  the  words 
in  death,  "  Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit ; " 
from  first  to  last  the  Son  doing  nothing  of  Himself,  all  His 
speaking  the  result  of  an  inward  hearing  of  the  Father,  all  His 
works  the  doing  of  the  Father  that  dwelleth  in  Him,  all  His 
strength  the  strength  of  faith,  all  His  peace,  all  His  joy, — peace 


2J6     COMMENDATION  OF  THE  VIEW  NOW  TAKEN 

and  joy  in  conscious  oneness  with  the  Father,  all  His  consola- 
tion in  the  prospect  of  desertion  drawn  from  the  assurance,  that, 
though  all  forsake  Him,  He  is  not  alone,  because  the  Father 
is  with  Him;  the  bearing  of  the  heavy  burden  of  our  sins 
accomplished  in  the  might  of  a  hope  sustained  by  the  conscious- 
ness that  what  of  pain  they  were  to  His  heart,  they  were  also 
to  the  Father's  heart :  that  what  of  interest  we  were  to  His 
heart,  we  were  also  to  the  Father's  heart :  therefore  His 
separating  between  us  and  our  sins,  His  intercession,  "  Father, 
forgive  them ;  for  they  know  not  what  they  do," — a  separating, 
an  intercession,  in  the  assurance  of  the  response  of  the  Father's 
righteous  mercy: — in  all  this  I  say  is  unity,  and  harmony,  and 
.  divine  simplicity.  We  can  trace  all  this  back  to  the  purpose, 
"  Lo,  I  come  to  do  thy  will."  Had  it  been  given  to  us  to  hear 
the  expression  of  that  purpose,  and  were  it  permitted  us  to 
follow  its  fulfilment  with  a  perfect  spiritual  vision,  all  would  be 
seen  to  be  in  accordance  with  it,  and  to  be  made  clear  to  us, 
step  by  step,  by  its  light.  The  path  thus  trod  we  should  expect 
to  find  all  lying  within  the  light  of  the  Father's  favour ;  and  it 
has  been  so.  Suffering  and  sorrow  we  should  not  anticipate, 
apart  from  what  we  might  understand  of  the  nature  of  sin,  with 
which  the  Son  of  God  was  come  to  deal  in  the  might  of  the 
eternal  righteousness  ;  but  for  suffering  and  sorrow  and  self- 
sacrifice  in  accomplishing  the  end  of  righteous  love,  we  should 
understand  that  love  was  prepared.  And  if  any  difficulty 
should  be  felt  as  to  suffering  coming  to  the  Holy  One  and  the 
True,  it  must  pass  away, — I  can  only  express  my  own 
experience  by  saying  it  has  passed  away, — in  contemplating 
these  sufferings  as  they  arise,  and  in  considering  and  appre- 
hending their  nature ;  the  unity  with  the  Father  out  of  which 
they  spring,  the  unity  with  the  Father  in  which  they  are  borne ; 
and  the  justification  of  the  Father  in  relation  to  them,  in  their 
divine  fitness  to  accomplish  the  ends  of  the  Father's  love  in 
sending  the  Son  to  do  His  will  in  humanity,  and  reveal  His 
name  to  men, — even  as  they  were  thus  justified  to  the  sufferer 
Himself,   "Now  is  my  soul  troubled;    and  what  shall  I  say? 


OF  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.   277 

Father,  save  me  from  this  hour;  but  for  this  cause  came  I  unto 
this  hour.     Father,  glorify  thy  name." 

What  is  thus  seen  endured  in  conscious  oneness  with  the 
Father  as  a  necessary  element  in  the  Son's  glorifying  of  the 
Father,  and  in  the  strength  and  with  the  comfort  of  the  Father's 
acknowledgment,  we  can  believe  in  as  a  cup  which  the  Father 
gave  the  Son  to  drink,  and  which  the  Son  welcomed  from  the 
Father's  hand.  But  if  we  are  asked  to  see  the  path  which  the 
Son  is  treading  in  doing  the  Father's  will,  declaring  His  name, 
as,  at  a  certain  point,  passing  out  of  the  Father's  favour  into 
His  wrath,  and  that  a  demand  is  made  on  us  for  the  faith  of  a 
consciousness  both  in  the  Father  and  in  the  Son,  in  their 
relation  to  each  other,  which  would  make  this  statement  a 
reality:  or  if  the  conception  be  not  that  of  transition,  but  that 
we  are  asked  to  combine  with  the  faith  of  a  favour  always 
resting  upon  the  Son,  the  faith  of  a  wrath  from  the  Father  as 
also  proceeding  forth  upon  Him;  however  other  grounds  for 
this  faith  may  be  urged,  or  whatever  weight  may  be  asserted  for 
them — which  question  I  am  not  at  this  moment  considering — 
it  is  clear  that  the  unity  and  harmony  and  natural  character  of 
what  we  have  been  contemplating  as  the  fulfilment  of  the 
purpose,  "  Lo,  I  come  to  do  thy  will,"  is  marred,  and  the  com- 
mendation on  this  ground  at  least,  of  that  which  is  presented  to 
our  faith,  ceases. 

3.  This  unity  and  simplicity  and  natural  character  of  the 
atonement,  contemplated  as  the  form  which  the  life  of  love 
in  Christ  took — the  natural  development  of  the  incarnation — is 
still  further  commended  to  us  by  its  imparting  a  corresponding 
unity  and  simplicity  to  the  relation  of  the  atonement  to 
Christianity.  If  the  atonement  be  the  form  which  the  eternal 
life  took  in  Christ,  Ihat  eternal  life  which  the  Father  has  given 
to  us  in  the  Son,  then,  as  the  atonement  is  the  development  of 
the  incarnation,  so  is  Christianity  the  development  of  the  atone- 
ment j  and  this  is  only  what  the  words,  "  I  am  the  vine,  ye  are 
the  branches,"  express. 

The  fitness  of  all  the  elements  that  have  been  now  recognised 


2/8     COMMENDATION  OF  THE  VIEW  NOW  TAKEN 

as  present  in  the  personal  consciousness  of  Christ  in  humanity 
in  making  His  soul  an  offering  for  sin,  to  enter  into  the 
experience  of  Christians,  and  be  the  elements  of  their  lives, 
must  have  been  commending  itself  to  the  reader  as  we  have 
proceeded.  These  elements  of  our  Lord's  consciousness  as  the 
rays  of  the  light  of  the  life  that  was  in  Him,  have  that  relation 
to  us  and  our  state,  that,  shining  in  us  in  faith,  they  necessarily 
reproduce  themselves  in  us,  that  is,  according  to  the  measure  of 
our  faith ;  man  and  God,  sin  and  holiness  becoming  to  us  in 
the  light  of  Christ  what  that  light  reveals  them  to  be,  and  the 
confession  of  sin  and  the  choice  of  holiness,  self-despair  and 
trust  in  God,  springing  up  in  us  :  a  confession  of  sin  in  unison 
with  Christ's  confession  of  our  sins,  a  trust  in  God  quickened 
by  the  faith  of  His  trust  in  the  Father  on  our  behalf  and  laying 
hold  on  that  in  the  Father's  heart  on  which  His  intercession 
laid  hold.  The  atonement  thus  through  faith  reproduces  its 
own  elements  in  us,  we  being  raised  to  the  fellowship  of  that  to 
which  Christ  descended  in  working  out  our  salvation.  "We 
are  crucified  with  Christ "  in  actual  consciousness,  as  we  were 
in  the  death  of  Christ  for  us  in  the  counsel  and  grace  of  the 
Father :  "  Nevertheless  we  live  ;  yet  not  we  but  Christ  liveth 
in  us." 

Let  our  minds  rest  on  this  unity  between  the  atonement  and 
Christianity.  How  natural  a  sequel  to  the  atonement  is 
Christianity  thus  seen  to  be  !  Christ's  work  shared  in  through 
being  trusted  to,  or  rather  trusted  to  with  a  trust  which  is  of 
necessity  a  sharing  in  it.  No  need  here  to  watch  ourselves 
that  we  may  not  only  trust  to  Christ,  but  also  receive  Him  as 
our  life  ;  for  in  the  light  in  which  we  are,  these  are  but  two 
forms  of  expression  for  one  movement  of  our  inner  man.  For, 
as  I  would  ever  keep  before  the  reader's  mind,  trust  in  the 
work  of  Christ  is,  in  its  ultimate  reference,  trust  in  that 
fatherly  heart  in  God  which  that  work  reveals,  and  such 
trust  is  the  pulse  and  breath  of  our  new  life — the  life  of 
son  ship. 

But  this  natural  relation  of  Christianity  to  the  atonement,  and 


OF  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.   279 

which  I  believe  to  be  a  part  of  the  simplicity  which  is  in 
Christ,  disappears  when  we  would  pass  to  Christianity  from 
that  other  conception  of  the  work  of  redemption  according  to 
which  the  atonement  and  the  life  given  to  us  in  Christ,  are 
totally  distinct  and  diverse  in  their  nature  ;  so  that  we  are 
taught  to  keep  them  distinct  in  our  thoughts  trusting  to  the 
one  while  we  welcome  the  other. 

To  any  seeking  a  clear,  intelligent  consciousness  in  religion, 
the  complexity  of  this  teaching  appears  to  me  to  involve 
practical  difficulties  which  have  been  unaccountably  little  felt. 
As  to  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  whatever  sufferings  of  His  may 
still  be  considered  as  what  we  are  to  share  in,  (and  the  words 
"  if  we  suffer  with  Him  we  shall  also  reign  with  Him,"  must  be 
held  to  imply  that  such  sufferings  there  are,)  it  is  clear,  that 
sufferings  assumed  to  have  been  the  punishment  of  our  sins, 
endured  by  Christ  as  our  substitute,  we  cannot  be  intended  to 
share  in,  not  even  though,  as  to  their  outward  form  and  circum- 
stances, they  should  be  repeated  in  our  history  ;  for  still  they 
would  not  be  sufferings  endured  as  the  wrath  of  God  and  the 
punishment  of  sin,  inflicted  on  us  as  having  the  guilt  of  sin 
imputed  to  us.  Indeed,  were  we  to  see  one  professing  trust  in 
Christ,  suffering  with  this  consciousness,  we  should  feel  that  he 
was  therein  denying  Christ,  and  making  His  death  for  sin  of 
none  effect.  Therefore  any  consciousness  that  is  ascribed  to 
Christ,  on  the  assumption  of  His  being  consciously  bearing  our 
sins  as  what  the  Father  imputed  to  Him,  and  what  drew  forth 
the  Father's  wrath  upon  Him  personally,  must  be  excluded  from 
what  the  example  which  Christ  is  to  us  comprises. 

But  even  as  to  the  righteousness  of  Christ  as  that  is  con- 
ceived of,  how  was  He  in  fulfilling  all  righteousness,  as  His 
doing  so  is  represented  in  this  system,  an  example  to  us? 
He  is  supposed  as  one  under  the  law  to  be  consciously  engaged 
in  meeting  its  demands,  working  out  a  legal  righteousness  to  be 
imputed  to  us.  But  this  is  not  a  consciousness  which  we  are 
supposed  to  be  called  to  share,  being  not  under  the  law  but 
under  grace.     So  while  His  righteousness  is  represented  as  a 


280    COMMENDATION  OF  THE  VIEW  NOW  TAKEN 

perfect  legal  righteousness,  it  is  as  such  put  in  opposition  to  the 
righteousness  contemplated  for  us,  which  is  the  righteousness 
of  faith.  Now  I  am  not  at  present  considering  the  objections 
otherwise  to  this  manner  of  conception ;  I  here  consider  it 
only  in  relation  to  the  recognition  of  Christ  as  our  example,  and 
I  request  those  who,  while  adopting  these  distinctions,  propose 
to  themselves  to  follow  Christ  as  an  example,  to  consider  how, 
adhering  to  these  distinctions,  they  can  attempt  to  follow 
Christ  as  an  example  in  relation  to  His  inner  life — the  springs 
of  His  action — the  conscious  rightness  of  His  righteousness — 
His  conscious  confidence  towards  God — His  walk  with  God. 
I  I  do  not  see  how  they  can  do  so  with  conscious  inward  consis- 
tency. No  doubt  Christ  did  fulfil  the  law — did  fulfil  all  right- 
eousness ;  not,  however,  in  a  legal  spirit,  but  as  the  Son  of  God 
Allowing  God  as  a  dear  child.  Therefore,  in  the  true  concep- 
tion of  this  matter  there  is  no  practical  difficulty,  Christ's  right- 
eousness as  the  form  of  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  the  life  that 
was  in  Him,  being,  in  the  strictest  and  most  absolute  sense,  an 
example  for  us  who  have  the  life  of  sonship  in  Him,  and  in 
whom  the  righteousness  of  the  law  is  to  be  fulfilled  in  our 
walking  in  His  spirit. 

The  complication  introduced  in  consequence  of  this  depar- 
ture from  the  simplicity  of  the  truth  is  obviously  still  further 
increased  when  we  add  to  the  assumed  presence  in  Christ  of 
the  sense  of  an  imputation  of  sin,  the  presence  in  us  of  the 
sense  of  the  imputation  of  righteousness  ;  a  consciousness 
which  could  have  had  nothing  corresponding  with  it  in  the 
consciousness  of  Christ. 

But,  in  whatever  way  these  practical  difficulties  in  walking  in 
the  footsteps  of  the  Son  of  God,  in  the  highest  sense  which 
these  words  can  bear,  may  be  dealt  with,  the  fitness  of  the 
atonement,  as  now  contemplated,  to  be  reproduced  in  us,  and 
on  the  other  view  of  its  nature,  its  unfitness  to  be  so  repro- 
duced, are  alike  clear ;  and,  apart  from  other  and  more  funda- 
mental aspects  of  the  subject,  I  certainly  feel  that  greater 
simplicity,  a  more  natural  character  in  the  transition  from  the 


OF  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.   281 

work  of  Christ  to  our  calling  as  Christians,  is  a  consideration  to 
which  weight  is  due. 

4.  I  say  "  apart  from  other  and  more  fundamental  aspects 
of  the  subject."  For,  while  it  certainly  accords  to  my  mind 
with  the  assumption  that  the  true  conception  has  been  reached, 
that  the  atonement  is  thus  seen  filled  with  the  light  of  the 
life  of  Christ — characterised  by  the  simplicity  and  unity  proper 
to  a  life — and  standing  to  Christianity  in  the  natural  relation  of 
the  life  that  is  in  the  vine  to  the  life  that  is  in  the  branches ; 
yet  these  appearances  are  comparatively  superficial,  and  must 
be  delusive,  however  beautiful,  unless  the  atonement  which 
they  commend  is  in  harmony  with  the  divine  righteousness, 
and  such  as  meets  the  demands  of  the  eternal  laws  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.  Therefore  an  appeal  to  these  must  still 
remain. 

I  have  already  expressed  my  accordance  with  President 
Edwards  in  his  founding  on  the  absolute  righteousness  of  God, 
and  my  greater  sympathy  with  him  than  with  those  who  ascend 
no  higher  than  what  they  express  by  the  words  "  rectoral  jus- 
tice." Doubtless  what  meets  the  requirements  of  absolute 
righteousness  must  secure  the  interests  of  rectoral  justice  ; 
while  it  is  not  easy  to  see — I  cannot  see — how  the  interests  of 
rectoral  justice  can  be  felt  secure  if  the  requirements  of  absolute 
righteousness  are  compromised,  or  even  are  not  seen  to  be 
taken  in  account.  But  in  whichever  relation  the  atonement  is 
contemplated,  the  superiority  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  atone- 
ment, which  I  have  now  attempted  to  illustrate,  seems  to  me 
clear.  That  such  an  atonement  lay  within  the  limits  of  the 
principles  of  eternal  rectitude  on  which  Edwards  builds,  we 
have  seen  in  the  alternatives  which  he  states.  And,  being  con- 
templated as  within  these  limits,  I  have  no  doubt  that,  if 
realised,  its  higher  character  must  be  recognised.  I  would 
indeed  rather  speak  of  its  exclusive  claim  to  meet  adequately 
the  demand  of  the  eternal  righteousness  ;  but  its  higher  charac- 
ter as  a  meeting  of  that  demand  is  beyond  question  ;  and,  if  so, 
then  also  its  superiority  as  that  moral  demonstration  and  vindi- 


282    COMMENDATION  OF  THE  VIEW  NOW  TAKEN 

cation  of  God's  rectoral  government  which  the  teachers  of  the 
modified  Calvinism  regard  as  what  was  called  for. 

This  much  I  feel  justified  in  saying,  even  looking  at  the 
question  with  exclusive  reference  to  the  honouring  of  the  divine 
law.  But  when  we  consider,  that  the  highest  honouring  of  the 
law  cannot  be  recognised  as  an  atonement  for  sin  apart  from 
the  prospective  result  contemplated, — as,  indeed,  but  with  a  view 
to  such  a  result  an  atonement  could  never  have  been, — the 
natural  relation  of  the  atonement  to  Christianity  now  illustrated, 
and  which  in  its  first  aspects  so  commends  itself  to  us,  is  seen, 
when  more  deeply  considered,  to  be  of  fundamental  import- 
ance. 

Some,  I  know,  are  so  far  from  feeling  that  a  natural  relation 
between  the  atonement  and  Christianity  is  necessary,  or  to  be 
looked  for,  that  they  draw  back  from  the  attempt  to  trace  such  a 
relation  as  what  they  would  call  reducing  the  work  of  atone- 
ment to  the  mere  setting  an  example  before  us, — and  consider- 
ing the  associations  which  exist  with  making  the  example  of 
Christ  the  sum  and  substance  of  Christianity,  great  jealousy  on 
this  subject  may  well  be  excused.  Yet  that  jealousy  may  go 
too  far,  If  to  represent  the  atonement  as  what  we  are  intended 
to  participate  in,  having  its  elements  reproduced  in  us,  be  to 
lower  the  conception  of  an  atonement,  must  it  not  be  held  also 
that  it  is  a  lowering  of  our  conception  of  the  divine  nature  to 
say  that  the  gospel  contemplates  our  participation  in  it — that 
it  is  a  lowering  of  our  conception  of  what  is  said  when  it  is 
said  "  God  is  love,"  to  speak  of  men  as  "  dwelling  in  love," 
and  so  "dwelling  in  God?"  I  know  that  such  thoughts  of  the 
relation  of  the  human  to  the  divine  may  be  so  entertained  as  to 
lower  our  conceptions  ot  God,  rather  than  to  raise  our  concep- 
tions of  that  to  which  God  calls  man \  but  that  the  latter,  and 
not  the  former,  ought  to  be  their  operation,  is  unquestionable, 
So  of  the  atonement  as  now  represented,  if  it  has  been  a  form 
which  the  eternal  life  took  in  Christ,  a  form  determined  by  the 
nature  of  that  life  and  the  circumstances  in  which  it  was 
developed,  it  follows,  that  in  the  measure  in  which  we  partake 


OF  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.   283 

in_that_eternal  life,  we  shall_partake  jn_the  atonem ent,  and  have 
it  reproduced  in  us  :  though  not  with  the  same  personal  con- 
sciousness as  in  the  Saviour,  who,  as  I  have  said,  came  down  in 
saving  us  to  that  to  which  in  being  saved  we  are  raised.  But 
so  to  conceive  is  surely  not  to  have  our  conceptions  of  the 
atonement  lowered,  but  only  our  conceptions  of  Christianity 
exalted.  And  let  not  the  expression  "  example  "  turn  us  away. 
For  as  to  the  dignity  that  may  belong  to  an  example  let  us 
remember  the  exhortations  "  Be  ye  therefore  followers  of  God 
as  dear  children,"  "  Be  ye  therefore  perfect  even  as  your  Father 
which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect." 

But,  indeed,  apart  from  this,  the  truth  is  that  the  use  of  the 
expression  "  example  "  is  misleading.  The  relation  of  our  partici- 
pation in  the  atonement  to  the  atonement  is  radically  a  different 
thing  from  what  the  words  "following  an  example"  suggest. 
Each  slender  branch,  each  leafy  twig  of  the  tree,  with  its  fruit- 
blossomed  or  ripened  fruit,  may  recall  the  plant  in  its  first  form 
as  a  single  stem,  yet  with  all  its  proper  nature  and  beauty 
already  visible  in  it,  with  that  richness  of  leaf,  and  blossom, 
and  fruit  which  belongs  to  the  first  development  of  the  life  of 
plants ;  but  these  reproductions  of  the  original  plant  in  its 
branches  are  not  individual,  independent,  self-reliant  plants. 
It  drew,  as  it  draws,  its  life  from  the  ground  ;  they  draw  their 
life  from  it ;  Christ  is  the  vine ;  we  are  the  branches.  As  it  is 
no  depreciating  of  the  life  seen  in  the  plant  while  yet  a  single 
stem,  to  say  that  that  same  life  is  the  contemplated  life  of  its 
future  branches  ;  so  neither  is  it  a  depreciation  of  the  atone- 
ment to  say  that  that  eternal  life,  which  glorified  God  and 
wrought  redemption  for  man,  in  the  personal  work  of  Christ  on 
earth,  is  the  same  that  is  to  be  seen  bearing  fruit  to  the  glory 
of  God  in  us  in  our  participation  in  redemption.  Such  con- 
ceptions neither  depreciate  the  atonement  nor  affect  the  abso- 
luteness of  our  dependence  on  Christ ;  on  the  contrary,  the 
relation  of  the  branch  to  the  vine  alone  represents  that  depend- 
ence adequately.  And  this  will,  I  trust,  meet  a  difficulty  which 
really  arises  from  feeling  the  expression  "  example  "  suggestive 


284    COMMENDATION  OF  THE  VIEW  NOW  TAKEN 

of  individuality,  and  individual  independence,  as  if  we  were  to 
be  individually  each  another  Christ,  and  our  participation  in 
the  atonement  itself  an  atonement,  our  participation  in  the 
propitiation  itself  a  propitiation. 

But,  it  is  not  only  that  this  recognition  of  a  natural  relation 
between  the  atonement  and  Christianity  is  in  itself  no  objection 
to  the  view  which  implies  it,  and  can  only  under  misapprehen- 
sion of  what  is  taught,  be  regarded  as  reducing  the  work  of 
Christ  to  a  mere  example.  The  truth  is,  that  the  discernment 
of  this  natural  relation  becomes  essential  to  our  faith  in  the 
adequacy  of  the  atonement  in  proportion  as  we  see  the  subject  of 
atonement  in  the  light  of  God.  No  doubt  the  perfect  response 
from  humanity  to  the  divine  mind  in  relation  to  our  sins,  which 
has  been  in  Christ's  confession  of  our  sins  before  the  Father, 
has  been  the  due  and  proper  expiation  for  that  sin, — an  expia- 
tion infinitely  more  glorifying  to  the  law  of  God,  than  any  penal 
suffering  could  be ;  but  that  confession,  as  it  would  not  have 
been  at  all,  but  in  connexion  with  that  intercession  for  the 
transgressors  which  laid  hold  of  the  divine  mercy  on  our  behalf, 
so  neither  would  it  have  been  the  suitable  and  adequate  atone- 
ment for  our  sin  apart  from  its  fitness  to  be  reproduced  in  us, 
and  the  contemplated  result  of  its  being  so  reproduced.  No 
doubt  the  perfect  righteousness  of  Christ  seen  as  the  perfection 
of  sonship  in  humanity,  and  acknowledged  in  the  words,  "  This 
is  my  beloved  Son  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased,"  is  a  higher 
righteousness  than  obedience  in  any  legal  aspect  of  it ;  and,  if 
fruits  of  righteousness  could  be  dispensed  to  us,  either  in  con- 
nection with  imputation,  or  without  imputation,  on  the  ground 
of  the  righteousness  of  another,  otherwise  than  in  the  reproduc- 
tion of  that  righteousness  in  ourselves,  here  was  the  highest 
righteousness,  the  divine  righteousness  in  humanity  :  but  that 
righteousness  could  never  have  been  accounted  of  in  our 
favour,  or  be  recognised  as  "  ours,"  apart  from  our  capacity  of 
partaking  in  it ;  that  is  to  say,  apart  from  its  being  a  righteous- 
ness in  humanity,  and,  therefore,  for  all  partaking  in  humanity. 

In  order  that  the  importance  of  this  natural  relation  between 


OF  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.   285 

the  atonement  and  Christianity  may  be  clearly  seen,  the  rela- 
tion in  which  the  joy  of  God  in  Christians  stands  to  his  perfect 
delight  in  Christ  must  be  understood.  I  have  already  had 
occasion  to  express  my  objection  to  what  is  held  on  this  subject 
in  connection  with  imputation  of  righteousness,  or  the  transfer- 
ence of  the  fruits  of  righteousness,  assumed  to  be  implied  in 
justification  by  faith.  There  has  been  in  this  matter  a  subvert- 
ing of  the  natural  relation  of  things  which  has  caused  much 
darkness.  The  end  has  been  represented  as  valued  for  the 
sake  of  the  means ;  not  the  means  for  the  sake  of  the  end. 
The  very  excellence  inherent  in  the  means  has  partly  led  to 
this.  When  we  look  at  the  work  of  Christ,  viewed  simply  in 
itself,  it  is  seen  filled  with  a  divine  glory,  and  a  moral  and 
spiritual  excellence  is  felt  to  belong  to  it  so  great  that  God 
alone  can  perfectly  appreciate  it.  To  say  that  it  is  the  Eternal 
Will  of  God  fulfilled,  is  to  say  that  it  is  in  itself  infinitely 
acceptable  to  God.  When,  then,  the  remission  of  our  sins, 
and  the  gift  of  Eternal  life,  are  preached  to  us  in  connection 
with  that  excellent  glory  to  God  in  humanity,  we  feel  that  any 
acknowledgment  of  it  that  can  be,  is  to  be  looked  for  \  and, 
also,  that  nothing  granted  on  the  ground  of  it  can  be  otherwise 
than  safely  granted,  for  that  mercy  flowing  through  such  a 
channel  must  be  holy  :  so  that  we  easily  receive  the  statement, 
that  pardon  of  past  sin,  and  prospective  blessings,  are  all  given 
to  us  for  Christ's  sake,  and  because  of  the  perfect  atonement 
which  Christ  has  made  for  our  sin,  and  God's  perfect  delight  in 
Him  ;  and  this,  if  we  are  in  the  light  of  God  in  the  matter,  we 
cannot  do  too  readily  or  too  confidently.  And  yet  our  lack  of 
spiritual  discernment,  and  of  participation  in  the  mind  of  God, 
combined,  also,  I  would  say,  with  our  unenlightened  sense  of 
the  evil  and  danger  of  our  condition  as  sinners,  may  lead  to 
our  resting  in  notions  of  the  meaning  of  the  expression  "  for 
Christ's  sake,"  which  are  superficial  and  even  erroneous.  And 
this  is  sure  to  be  the  case  if  we  enter  not  into  these  two  great 
truths,  viz.  : — 

1.  Though,   in   a   true   sense   and   one   which    it  is    most 


286    COMMENDATION  OF  THE  VIEW  NOW  TAKEN 


\ 


important  that  we  should  apprehend,  remission  of  sins  and  the 
gift  of  eternal  life,  are  presented  to  our  faith  as  resting  on  the 
atonement,  and  as  the  redemption  which  Christ  has  accom- 
plished for  us  ;  yet  is  the  ultimate  ground  of  these,  and  of  the 
atonement  itself  in  its  relation  to  these,  to  be  seen  in  God,  who 
s  to  be  conceived  of,  not  as  moved  to  give  us  remission  of  sins 
md  eternal  life  by  the  atonement,  but  as  self-moved  to  give  us 
remission  of  sins  and  eternal  life,  and  as  giving  them  through 
[the  atonement  as  what  secures  that  what  is  given  shall  be 
received,  on  the  ground  of  that  i?i  God  which  moves  Him  to  this 
grace,  and  in  harmo?iy  with  His  mi?id  in  bestowing  it.  So  that 
to  stop  at  the  atonement,  and  rest  in  the  fact  of  the  atonement, 
instead  of  ascending  through  it  to  that  in  God  from  which  it 
has  proceeded,  and  which  demanded  it  for  its  due  expression, 
is  to  misapprehend  the  atonement  as  to  its  nature,  and  place, 
and  end.  It  has  been  truly  said,  that  men  have  perverted 
creation,  and  instead  of  using  it  as  a  glass  through  which  to  see 
God,  have  turned  it  into  a  veil  to  hide  God.  I  believe  the 
greater  work  of  redemption  has  been  the  subject  of  a  similar 
perversion.  It  is  the  commendation  of  the  light  in  which 
Christ's  doing  of  the  Father's  will,  Christ's  declaring  of  the 
Father's  name,  has  now  been  contemplated,  that,  as  I  have 
said,  it  ever  raises  the  mind  to  the  Eternal  Will,  the  Unchang- 
ing Name. 

2.  As  it  is  thus  necessary,  in  order  that  we  may  not  mis- 
understand the  expression  "  for  Christ's  sake,"  that  we  ascend 
from  the  work  of  Christ,  and  through  it,  to  that  in  God  because 
of  which  that  work  lias  itself  been,  and  to  which,  therefore,  we 
must  refer  all  that  springs  out  of  it ;  so  is  it  necessary  that,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  descend  from  the  work  of  Christ  to  its 
results,  and,  viewing  these  as  its  fruits,  see  that  work  as  means 
to  an  end,  and,  therefore,  as  having  its  ultimate  value  in  the 
sight  of  God  in  the  excellence  of  that  end,  and  its  adequacy  to 
accomplish  it.  This  going  forward  to  the  result  is  inevitable  if 
we  go  back  to  where  redemption  has  its  origin  in  the  divine 
mind.     We  cannot  stop   between.     For   the  work  of  Christ, 


OF  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.    287 

while  of  infinite  excellence  in  itself,  has  its  special  value  as  the 
work  of  redemption  in  the  excellence  of  its  result.  If  Christ 
were  a  mere  man,  His  excellence  in  Himself,  could  such 
excellence  have  been  in  a  mere  man,  would  have  been  enough 
to  satisfy  the  mind  as  to  God's  glory  in  Him  :  but,  seeing 
the  perfection  of  sonship — like  the  perfection  of  fatherliness — as 
divine,  and  eternal,  and,  as  respects  the  Son  of  God,  only 
manifested  in  humanity,  and  not  then  come  into  existence,  this 
divine  excellence  in  humanity  in  the  person  of  Christ  is  seen 
as  in  humanity  with  a  view  to  results  in  all  humanity.  There- 
fore these  results  are  not  to  be  regarded  as  excellent  in  the 
sight  of  God,  and  justified  because  of  that  divine  excellence  in 
humanity ;  but  rather  the  existence  of  that  divine  excellence  in 
humanity  is  to  be  seen  by  us  in  the  light  of  these  results,  and 
God's  ultimate  glory  in  it  is  to  be  seen  in  them.  This  is  saying 
no  more  than  what  our  Lord  plainly  teaches  when  He  says,  "  I 
am  the  vine,  ye  are  the  branches.  Herein  is  my  Father  glori- 
fied that  jy<?  bear  much  fruit." 

Now  the  origin  of  the  atonement  in  God,  and  its  result  in 
man,  have  been  kept  constantly  before  the  mind  in  the  view 
now  given  of  the  nature  of  the  atonement ;  and  any  misconcep- 
tion of  the  expression  "  for  Christ's  sake  "  has  been  precluded  : 
as  it  is  also  obvious,  that  all  practical  using  of  the  atonement  as 
now  represented — all  turning  the  knowledge  of  it  to  account  in 
our  personal  intercourse  with  God — must  be  in  the  way  of  an 
ascending  through  it  to  that  in  God  from  which  it  springs,  and 
a  yielding  ourselves  to  God  to  have  that  which  it  has  con- 
templated accomplished  in  us. 

This  movement  in  our  inner  being — this  moulding  of  us  to 
itself — the  atonement,  apprehended  by  a  true  and  living  faith, 
necessarily  accomplishes ;  and  its  tendency  to  secure  this 
result,  is  one  element  in  our  faith,  when  we  first  believe ;  as 
also  the  experience  of  this  power  in  it  is  the  great  subsequent 
strengthening  of  our  faith.  Ascending  upwards  to  the  mind  of 
God,  into  the  light  of  which  the  atonement  introduces  us,  and 
descending  again  to  the  ultimate  fulfilment  of  that  mind  in  men 


washed  from  their  sins  in  the  blood  of  Christ,  and  made  kings 
and  priests  unto  God,  and  reigning  with  Christ,  we  not  only 
feel  a  harmony  and  simplicity  and  beauty  in  the  natural  relation 
of  the  atonement  to  Christianity,  but  we  are  also  conscious  to 
finding  in  that  natural  relation  a  chief  and  most  sure  ground  for 
our  faith  in  the  atonement,  and  in  remission  of  sins  and  eternal 
life,  as  presented  to  us  in  connection  with  it.  Every  time  we 
are  enabled,  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  through  participation  in  the 
spirit  of  Christ,  to  confess  sin  before  God,  and  meet  His  mind 
towards  sin  with  such  a  response  as,  in  the  faith  of  pardon  and 
liberty  of  sonship,  we  are  enabled  to  give,  we  have  a  clearer 
glimpse  of  the  excellence  of  Christ's  expiatory  confession  of  our 
sins,  and  of  the  righteousness  of  God  in  accepting  it  on  our 
behalf,  to  the  end  that  we  might  thus  share  in  it.  Every  time 
we  lisp,  in  whatever  feebleness,  the  cry,  Abba,  Father,  having 
that  cry  quickened  in  us  by  the  revelation  of  the  Father  by  the 
Son,  we  see,  with  the  peculiar  insight  which  the  experience  of 
the  fulfilment  of  the  divine  counsel  in  ourselves  can  alone  give, 
the  excellence  of  that  kingdom  ordained  in  the  hands  of  a 
Mediator,  according  to  which  eternal  life  in  the  Son  is  the 
Father's  free  gift.  But  this  direct  occupation  of  our  own  con- 
science with  the  elements  of  the  blood  of  Christ,  and  with  the 
nature  of  the  hope  in  God  in  which  He  tasted  death  for  every 
man,  is  a  source  of  deep  certainty  as  to  the  glory  of  God  in  our 
redemption  through  Christ,  which  exclusively  belongs  to  the 
view  of  the  atonement,  according  to  which  our  trust  in  it  is 
necessarily  fellowship  in  it — that  fellowship  a  light  in  which  the 
sure  grounds  of  our  trust  are  ever  more  and  more  clearly  seen. 
For  this  character  can  only  belong  to  an  atonement  whose 
nature  admits  of  its  reproduction  in  us,  so  that  its  elements 
become  matter  of  consciousness  to  ourselves. 


289 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THAT   GOD    IS   THE    FATHER    OF    OUR    SPIRITS,    THE    ULTIMATE 
TRUTH    ON   WHICH    FAITH    MUST    HERE    ULTIMATELY    REST. 

'T'HAT  natural  relation  of  the  atonement  to  Christianity  on 
which  so  much  weight  has  now  been  laid  is  the  full 
meeting  of  a  demand  which  must  be  more  or  less  felt  in  any 
deep  realisation  of  the  divine  righteousness;  the  demand  which 
is  so  far  met  when  those  who  represent  our  acceptance  with 
God  as  turning  upon  our  trust  in  the  merits  of  Christ's  work 
are  still  careful  to  illustrate  the  moral  tendency  of  such  trust, 
founding  systems  of  "  Christian  Ethics  "  on  the  atonement ;  the 
demand  which  is  recognised  when  those  who  regard  the  actual 
imputation  of  Christ's  righteousness  as  what  justifies  us  in  the 
sight  of  God  are  careful  to  deny  the  character  of  justifying  faith 
to  any  faith  that  does  not  sanctify ;  for  Luther  alone  have  we 
found  setting  forth  the  excellent  righteousness  which  is  in  the 
faith  which  justifies  viewed  in  itself.  In  truth,  all  care  to  ex- 
clude antinomianism,  in  whatever  way  that  care  is  expressed,  is 
an  indication  of  the  depth  and  authority  of  the  feeling  which 
forbids  our  ascribing  to  the  righteous  God  any  constitution  of 
spiritual  and  moral  government,  which  does  not  contemplate 
results  in  harmony  with  the  divine  righteousness,  and  which  has 
not  its  justification  in  these  results.  So  that,  though,  in  form 
of  thought,  a  near  approach  is  made  to  saying,  that  the  great 
husbandman  values  the  fruitful  branch,  not  because  of  His 
delight  in  the  fruit  it  bears,  but  because  of  His  delight  in  the 


290        GOD  IS  THE  FATHER  OF  OUR  SPIRITS, 

imputed  excellence  of  the  vine;  still  the  real  feeling  of  the 
heart  is  in  harmony  with  the  words  of  our  Lord,  "  Herein  is  my 
Father  glorified,  that  ye  bear  much  fruit."  But,  as  these  words 
a"  Herein  is  my  Father  glorified  that  ye  bear  much  fruit,"  indi- 
cate, we  find  that  it  is  only  in  the  light  of  the  relation  in  which 
the  scheme  of  redemption  stands  to  the  father -lines s  of  God  that 
;he  necessity  for  a  natural  relation  of  the  atonement  to  Chris- 
ianity  can  be  adequately  conceived  of. 

\  The  great  and  root-distinction  of  the  view  of  the  atonement 
presented  in  these  pages  is  the  relation  in  which  our  redemp- 
tion is  regarded  as  standing  to  the  fatherliness  of  God.  In 
that  fatherliness  has  the  atonement  been  now  represented  as 
originating.  By  that  fatherliness  has  its  end  been  represented 
to  have  been  determined.  To  that  fatherliness  has  the  demand 
for  the  elements  of  expiation  found  in  it  been  traced.  But  the 
distinction  is  broad  and  unmistakeable  between  simple  mercy 
proposing  to  save  from  evils  and  bestow  blessings,  and  finding 
it  necessary  to  deal  with  justice  as  presenting  obstacles  to  the 
realisation  of  its  gracious  designs, — which  conception  is  that  on 
which  the  other  view  of  the  atonement  proceeds  j  and  this  of 
the  love  of  the  Father  of  our  spirits  going  forth  after  us,  His 
alienated  children,  lost  to  Him,  dead  to  Him  through  sin,  and 
desiring  to  be  able  to  say  of  each  one  of  us,  "  My  son  was  dead 
and  is  alive  again,  he  was  lost  and  is  found." 

Not,  indeed,  that  supposing  the  only  elements  of  the  divine 
character  concerned  in  determining  the  nature  of  the  atonement 
to  have  been  mercy  and  righteousness,  the  conception  to  which 
I  object  would  meet  the  requirements  ot  these  attributes  more 
adequately  than  that  which  I  offer  instead.  On  the  contrary, 
the  moral  and  spiritual  expiation  for  sin  which  Christ  has  made, 
has  dealt  with  the  justice  of  God,  whether  contemplated  as 
absolute  or  as  rectoral,  in  a  way  infinitely  more  glorifying  to 
the  law  of  God,  and  more  fitted  to  open  a  free  channel  for 
mercy  to  flow  in,  than  an  atonement  consisting  in  the  endur- 
ance of  penal  sufferings  by  the  Son  of  God  as  our  substitute 
would  have  done.     But  while  this  lower  ground  is  tenable,  we 


i 


AN  ULTIMATE  TRUTH  FOR  OUR  FAITH.       291 

should  not  be  justified  in  coming  down  from  the  point  of  view 
to  which  the  gospel  raises  us,  to  what,  while  true,  is  not  the 
ultimate  truth  revealed.  So  to  do,  would  be  to  forget  that  the 
gospel,  and  not  the  law,  affords  us  full  light  here ;  the  law 
being  subordinate  to  the  gospel,  as  our  relation  to  God  as  our 
righteous  Lord  is  subordinate  to  our  relation  to  Him  as  the 
Father  of  our  spirits, — the  original  and  root-relation,  in  the 
light  of  which  alone  all  God's  dealings  with  us  can  be  under- 
stood. How  far,  indeed,  this  subordinating  of  our  relation  to 
God  as  we  are  the  subjects  of  His  righteous  rule,  to  our  rela- 
tion to  Him  as  we  are  His  offspring,  is  from  depreciating  that 
which  is  subordinated,  has,  I  trust,  been  made  abundantly 
manifest,  seeing  that  it  is  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  the  life  that  is 
in  Christ  Jesus,  that  is  to  say,  sonship,  in  which  alone  the 
power  is  found  to  accomplish  the  fulfilment  of  the  righteousness 
of  the  law  in  us,  and  that  our  being  reconciled  to  God,  whose 
law  we  have  violated — the  writing  of  His  law  on  our  hearts,  so 
that  it  becomes  to  us  a  law  of  liberty — is  the  result  of  revealing 
to  us  our  Father  in  our  Lawgiver,  and  showing  us  the  law  of  the 
Lawgiver  in  its  fountain  in  the  Father's  heart. 

But  while  to  reveal  the  Father  in  the  Lawgiver  is  that  which 
reconciles  us  to  the  Lawgiver,  the  only  adequate  statement  of 
the  high  result  accomplished,  is,  that  it  is  reconciliation  to  the 
Father, — the  quickening  in  us  of  the  life  of  sonship.  However 
high  a  conception  it  is  that  the  "  disobedient  should  be  turned 
to  the  wisdom  of  the  just,"  that  alone  is  commensurate  with  the 
excellence  of  the  salvation  granted  to  us  which  is  conveyed 
by  the  words,  "Following  God  as  dear  children  walking  in 
love." 

As  to  the  place  now  recognised  as  belonging  to  the  fatherli- 
ness  of  God  in  the  history  of  our  redemption,  viz.,  that  it  is  the 
ultimate  ground  for  faith,  I  would  add  to  what  I  have  urged 
above  these  two  considerations  :  1st,  It  is  a  special  glory  to 
God  that  the  fatherliness  which  originates  our  salvation  and 
determines  its  nature — that  it  shall  be  the  life  of  sonship — is 
itself  that  in  which  the  saving  power  resides.     For,  as  we  have 


II 

I 


292        GOD  IS  THE  FATHER  OF  OUR  SPIRITS, 

seen,  the  Son  of  God  saves  us  by  a  work  whose  essence  and 
sum  is  the  declaring  of  the  Father's  Name.  A  result  so  high, 
accomplished  by  the  power  over  our  spirits  found  to  be  in  the 
Name  of  God, — that  is  to  say  in  what  God  is,  is  manifestly  the 
highest  glory  to  God.  No  result  referable  to  simple  Almighti- 
ness  could  be  the  same  glory.  That  God  should  by  a 
miracle  change  a  rebellious  child  into  a  loving  child  would  be 
no  such  glory  to  God  as  that  the  knowledge  of  the  fatherliness 
rebelled  against  should,  by  virtue  of  the  excellence  inherent 
in  that  fatherliness,  accomplish  this  result.  "We  love  Him 
because  He  first  loved  us."  The  power  to  quicken  love  in  us 
is  here  ascribed  to  the  love  with  which  God  regards  us,  con- 
sidered simply  as  love.  For  it  clearly  is  not  the  meaning,  that, 
because  God  loved  us,  He  wrought  a  miracle  of  Almighty 
power  to  make  us  love  Him.  And  do  we  not  feel  a  special 
glory  to  accrue  to  the  divine  love  from  this,  as  the  history  of  our 
love  to  God  ?  a  special  glory  which  vanishes,  whatever  other 
manner  of  glory  may  be  supposed  to  remain,  the  moment  the 
fact  of  our  loving  God  is  resolved  into  a  miracle  of  Almighty 
power.  2nd,  But  not  only  is  this  history  of  our  being  recon- 
ciled to  God  what  is  full  of  glory  to  God.  If  we  consider  well, 
we  must  see  that  our  being  reconciled  to  God  must  have  this 
history.  We  have  seen  that  the  words,  "  Lo  I  come  to  do  thy 
will,  O  God,"  indicate  the  difference  between  that  blood  of 
Christ  which  cleanseth  from  all  sin  and  the  blood  of  bulls  and 
of  goats  which  could  not  take  away  sin.  And  so  the  Apostle, 
when  illustrating  this,  goes  on  to  say,  "  By  the  which  will  we  are 
sanctified,  through  the  offering  of  the  body  of  Jesus  Christ  once." 
Our  sanctification  therefore  is  accomplished  by  the  will  of  God, 
as  acting  on  our  will  by  the  moral  and  spiritual  power  of  what 
that  divine  will  is  in  itself.  For  the  will  of  God,  in  order  to  be 
welcomed  with  that  welcome  which  is  holiness,  i.  e.  the  free 
consecration  of  our  will,  must  be  welcomed  just  because  of  what 

IT  IS. 

This  is. a. point  which  it  is  most  important  that  we  should  see 
clearly.     Nothing  extraneous  to  the  nature  of  the  divifie  will  itself 


AN  ULTIMATE  TRUTH  FOR   OUR  FAITH.       293 

to  which  we  are  to  be  reconciled,  can  have  a  part  in  reconciling  us 
to  that  will.  Fear  of  punishment,  hope  of  reward,  have  here  no 
place.  However  they  may  have  been  included  in  the  history  of 
our  awakening  to  the  importance  of  the  relation  in  which  our 
will  stands  to  the  divine  will,  they  must  go  for  nothing — they 
have  ever  been  found  to  go  for  nothing — when  the  soul  is  alone 
with  God,  feeling  itself  under  His  searching  eye,  all  its  self-con- 
sciousness quickened  by  the  realisation  of  the  divine  knowledge 
of  its  thoughts  "  when  yet  afar  off."  Simple  earnestness,  intense 
desire  to  be  safe  and  assured  of  happiness,  is  then  valued  only 
at  its  true  value ;  neither  is  it  self-deceivingly  supposed  to 
generate  anything  better  than  itself.  In  the  light  of  God,  all 
that  springs  from  the  desire  of  safety  and  happiness  is  seen  to 
continue  but  the  desire  of  safety  and  happiness  still ;  and  this, 
though  not  wrong, — nay,  though  in  a  lower  sense  right,  as  the 
working  of  an  instinct  in  our  being  which  God  acknowledges, 
and  which  God  addresses, — yet  assuredly  is  not  holiness,  nor  any 
approach  to  a  delight  in  God's  holy  will.  Nor,  if  we  should, 
on  any  ground,  have  come  to  conclude  that  we  are  assured  of 
the  safety  and  happiness  which  we  have  desired,  and,  in  conse- 
quence, should  feel  grateful  to  God  for  this  great  boon,  is  such 
gratitude,  though  a  higher  feeling  than  mere  fear,  or  hope,  to  be 
recognised  as  holiness,  or  as  what  implies  our  being  reconciled 
to  God  spiritually  and  truly. 

At  how  great  a  distance  from  all  oneness  of  will  with  the 
Holy  God  a  human  spirit  may  still  be,  even  when  esteeming 
itself  saved  and  thanking  God  for  salvation,  is  most  instructively 
illustrated  by  President  Edwards,  in  his  analysis  of  delusive 
appearances  of  conversion  which  had  come  under  his  own 
observation,  occurring  under  the  awakening  power  of  much 
urging  of  the  importance  of  salvation.  But  indeed,  clearly 
understood,  the  statement  is  felt  to  be  self-evident,  that 
the  will  of  God  must  reconcile  us  to  itself  by  the  power 
of  what  it  is,  or  not  at  all.  Therefore  that  the  Son  recon- 
ciles us  to  the  Father  by  revealing  the  Father  is  not  only 
a  way    of  salvation  full  of  glory   to    God,    but    is,    in    truth, 

Y 


294  G0D  IS  THE  FATHER  OF  OUR  SPIRITS, 

the  only  possible  way.  So  that  our  salvation  would  have 
been  impossible  had  there  not  been  in  the  heart  of  the  Father 
what,  being  revealed  to  us,  and  brought  to  bear  on  our  spirits, 
would  reconcile  us  to  Him,  making  His  condemnation  of  our 
sin  to  become  our  own  condemnation  of  it,  His  choice  for.us 
our  own  free  choice  for  ourselves,  His  love  the  light  of  life  to 
us,  His  fatherliness  the  quickening  of  sonship  in  us.  There 
being  that  in  God  which  was  adequate  to  this  result,  our  salva- 
tion was  not  only  possible,  but  the  way  and  manner,  as  well  as 
the  nature  of  our  salvation,  were  thereby  fixed  and  determined. 
The  Apostle  John  says,  "  And  we  have  seen  and  do  testify 
that  the  Father  sent  the  Son  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world." 
i  John  iv.  14.  I  have  had  occasion  above  to  notice  the  way 
in  which  the  Divinity  of  the  Saviour  has  been  contemplated  in 
relation  to  the  atonement  in  *&%  two  forms  of  Calvinism ;  in 
the  one  as  implying  a  capacity  of  infinite  suffering,  adequate 
because  infinite  ;  in  the  other,  as  giving  infinite  value  to  any 
suffering  in  respect  of  the  dignity  of  the  sufferer ;  instead  of 
recognising  the  divinity  of  the  sufferer  as  what  has  determined 
the  nature  of  His  sufferings,  and  has  given  them  their  moral 
and  spiritual  fitness  to  expiate  sin  and  purge  it  away.  There 
has  not  been  the  same  result  of  positive  error,  but  there  has 
beyond  doubt  been  great  loss  of  light  of  truth,  through  an 
unwise  resting  of  attention  on  the  simple  fact  of  the  divinity  of 
Christ,  which  has  veiled  the  teaching  of  the  words  "  the  Father 
sent  the  Son  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world,"  chosen  by  the 
Apostle  to  express  that  light  of  eternal  life  in  which  He  con- 
sciously was.  Labour  has  been  bestowed  on  proving  the 
divinity  of  the  persons  thus  spoken  of  in  connection  with  our 
salvation, — that  the  Father  is  God,  that  the  Son  is  God ;  and 
the  excellent  dignity  and  importance  of  salvation  have  doubt- 
less been  in  this  way  magnified.  But  the  special  teaching 
intended  by  the  Apostle  is  clearly  that  which  is  received  in 
contemplating  the  Father  as  the  Father,  and  the  Son  as  the 
Son.  Thus  considered,  the  statement  that  the  Father  sent  the 
Son  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  sheds  light  on  the  whole 


AN  ULTIMATE  TRUTH  FOR  OUR  FAITH.       295 

scheme  of  redemption,  its  origin,  its  end,  and  that  by  which 
that  end  is  accomplished. 

Exclusive  occupation  with  the  personal  dignity  claimed  for 
the  Saviour  by  the  name  "  the  Son  of  God,"  has,  indeed,  had 
the  general  result  of  causing  men  to  lose  the  teaching  contained 
in  that  name,  so  that  it  has  suggested  the  greatjiess  only  of  the 
love  of  God  to  man  revealed  in  Christ,  and  not  its  manner  and 
nature  ;  and  yet  neither  is  its  greatness  known  while  its  nature 
is  not  understood.  "  In  this  was  manifested  the  love  of  God 
towards  us,  because  that  God  sent  His  only  begotten  Son  into 
the  world,  that  we  might  live  through  Him  ; "  let  the  name 
"  Son  "  here  suggest  to  us  what  it  has  been  intended  to  suggest, 
and  the  nature  of  the  life  which  it  has  been  intended  that  we 
should  "  live  through  Him  "  will  be  taught  by  it.  "  Herein  is 
love,  not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that  He  loved  us,  and  sent 
His  Son  to  be  the  propitiation  for  our  sins  :"  let  the  name 
"  Son  "  here  teach  us  what  it  should  teach,  and  it  will  shed  light 
upon  that  propitiation  for  sin  which  Christ  is,  and  illustrate  to 
us  the  relation  of  the  life  of  sonship  to  the  atonement, — the 
relation  of  the  revelation  of  the  Father  by  the  Son  to  our  being 
reconciled  to  God. 

Fatherliness  in  God  originating  our  salvation  :  the  Son  of 
God  accomplishing  that  salvation  by  the  revelation  of  the 
Father ;  the  life  of  sonship  quickened  in  us,  the  salvation  con- 
templated ;  these  are  conceptions  continually  suggested  by  the 
language  of  Scripture  if  we  yield  our  minds  to  its  natural  force  ; 
and  they  are  conceptions  which  naturally  shed  light  on  each 
other,  and  which  in  their  combined  light,  and  contemplated 
together,  so  illustrate  the  nature  of  the  atonement,  as  to  impart 
a  conviction  like  that  produced  by  the  eternal  light  of  axiomatic 
truth.  Our  Lord  complains  that  He  had  come  in  His  Father's 
name  and  they  had  not  received  Him  :  yet  as  coming  in  the 
Father's  name  must  He  be  ultimately  received ;  any  other 
reception  is  not  the  reception  of  the  Son  of  God  by  which  we 
become  Sons  of  God.  "  He  came  unto  His  own,  and  His  own 
received  Him  not.     But  as  many  as  received  Him,  to  them 


296         GOD  IS  THE  FATHER  OF  OUR  SPIRITS, 

gave  He  power  to  be  the  sons  of  God,  even  to  them  that 
believe  on  His  name."  This  those  understand  whose  deepest 
conviction  of  having  found  salvation  in  Christ  is  as  the  experi- 
ence of  orphans  who  have  found  their  lofig-Iost  Father.  For, 
corresponding  to  the  yearning  of  the  Father's  heart  over  us 
while  yet  in  our  sins,  is  the  working  of  the  misery  of  our  orphan 
state  as  the  ultimate  contradiction  to  the  original  law  of  our  being: 
some  measure  of  conscious  realisation  of  which  misery  is  the 
truest  preparation  for  receiving  the  gospel,  being  the  first  yield- 
ing to  the  teaching  of  the  Father  drawing  us  to  the  Son  who 
alone  reveals  the  Father, — that  inarticulate  groaning  of  our 
spirits  to  which  Philip  gave  expression  in  saying,  "  Show  us  the 
Father,  and  it  sufficeth  us." 

It  is  justly  held  that  the  faith  that  there  is  a  God,  has  a  root 
in  us  deeper  than  all  inferential  argument,  a  root  in  relation  to 
which  all  inferential  argument  is  but  so  to  speak  complemental ; 
owing  its  authority  rather  to  that  root  than  that  root  at  all  to  it, 
though  being  what  that  root  demands  and  prepares  us  to 
expect.  And  surely  those  who  deal  with  men  who  are  attempt- 
ing to  be  atheists  act  most  wisely  when  they  throw  them  back 
on  this  root  of  faith  in  God  in  their  own  inner  being,  instead  of 
permitting  a  course  of  argument  which  allows  their  thoughts  to 
run  away  to  find  without  them  what,  unless  found  within  them, 
will  never  be  found  at  all.  That  this  God,  in  whose  existence 
we  necessarily  believe,  is  the  Father  of  our  spirits,  is  to  be 
regarded  as  a  further  truth,  the  faith  of  which  has  a  correspond- 
ing depth  of  root  in  us :  and  this  I  understand  the  Apostle  to 
recognise  in  the  use  he  makes  in  preaching  to  the  Athenians,  of 
the  expression  as  used  by  one  of  their  own  poets,  "  For  we  are 
also  His  offspring."  That  one  of  their  own  poets  had  said  so 
would  have  been  no  reason  for  assuming  that  they  ought  to 
have  believed  that  it  was  so,  and  to  have  determined  their 
manner  of  worshipping  God  accordingly,  unless  these  words  of 
the  poet  had  been  the  utterance  of  a  truth  that  was  deep  in  all 
their  hearts.  In  assuming,  as  I  have  been  doing,  a  relation  ot 
men  to  God  as  the  Father  of  spirits,  antecedent  to,  and  to  be 


AN  ULTIMATE  TRUTH  FOR  OUR  FAITH.       297 

regarded  as  underlying  their  relation  to  Him  as  their  moral 
governor,  I  have,  in  like  manner,  been  calculating  on  a  response 
from  the  depths  of  humanity.  And  it  is  in  the  hope  of  awaken- 
ing that  response  into  a  distinct  consciousness  that  I  have 
proceeded  in  treating  our  relationship  to  God  as  the  Father  of 
our  spirits,  as  the  ultimate  truth,  in  the  light  of  which  we  are  to 
see  the  scheme  of  our  redemption,  the  Father's  sending  the 
Son  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  If  we  are  in  very  truth 
God's  offspring,  if  it  is  as  the  Father  of  our  spirits  that  He 
regards  us  while  yet  in  our  sins,  it  accords  with  this  that  the 
Father  should  send  the  Son  to  save  us,  that  the  Son  should 
propose  to  save  us  by  the  revelation  of  the  Father,  and  that  our 
salvation  shall  be  participation  in  the  life  of  sonship. 

There  is  a  corresponding  witness  of  truth  in  the  results  which 
the  faith  of  the  atonement  accomplishes.  These  in  being  the 
truth  of  sonship  towards  God  and  the  truth  of  brotherhood 
towards  men  deepen  the  conviction  that  it  is  the  very  truth  of 
God  that  our  faith  is  receiving. 

1.  Sonship  quickened  in  us  by  the  revelation  of  the  fatherli- 
ness  that  is  in  God  is  sonship  in  the  true  and  natural  sense  of 
the  expression.  If  our  redemption  has  its  origin  in  the  feelings 
with  which  God  regards  us  as  the  Father  of  our  spirits,  if  the 
Son  of  God  accomplishes  our  salvation  by  revealing  the  Father 
to  us,  then  is  our  salvation  necessarily  the  truth  of  sonship. 
In  living  harmony  with  the  light  of  life,  drawn  by  the  Father  to 
the  Son,  knowing  the  Son  as  He  is  present  in  our  inmost  being 
— our  true  life,  and  ever  seeking  to  be  our  actual  life — yielding 
our  hearts  to  Him  to  reign  in  them,  "  receiving  with  meekness 
the  engrafted  word  which  is  able  to  save  our  souls,"  we  call 
God  "  Father ;"  and  the  utterance  is  from  us  a  true  and  natural 
and  simple  approach  to  the  Father  of  our  spirits,  such  as  He 
desires,  a  speaking  to  Him  according  to  the  truth  of  what  He 
is  to  us,  the  cherishing  of  an  immediate  direct  confidence  in 
His  fatherly  heart.  For  indeed  our  right  confidence  in  the 
Father  is  direct,  and  is  confidence  in  His  fatherly  heart  towards 
us,  as  also  is  our  confidence  in  the  Son  direct,  viz.  a  direct  con- 


's 


298         GOD  IS  THE  FATHER  OF  OUR  SPIRITS, 

Science  in  Him  as  our  proper  life  ;  which  several  manners  of 
confidence  we  are  to  discriminate  and  to  realise.  For  in  the 
Son  it  is,  and  not  apart  from  the  Son,  that  we  have  the  life  of 
sonship  ;  and  as  to  exercise  confidence  in  the  Father  is  to  con- 
fide in  him  as  our  Father,  so  to  exercise  confidence  in  the  Son 
is  to  welcome  the  life  of  sonship  which  we  have  in  Him.  And 
this  is  the  manner  of  our  being  alive  to  God  through  Jesus 
Christ,  and  it  is  self-evidenced  to  my  mind  as  the  truth  of  son- 
ship,  as  what  and  what  alone  we  can  believe  to  meet  and 
satisfy  that  fatherliness  in  God  which  presupposes,  and  by  the 
revelation  of  which  to  our  spirits  by  the  Son  it  is  quickened. 

I  cannot  recognise  this  truth  of  sonship,  in  what,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  other  conception  of  the  atonement,  is  held  as 
''adoption;"  of  which  I  desire  to  speak  plainly,  yet  warily, 
knowing  how  much  more  difficult  it  is  to  do  justice  in  the 
choice  of  one's  words  to  the  faith  of  others,  than  to  one's  own 
faith  ,  and  having,  also,  the  awe  on  my  spirit  of  the  true 
savour  of  the  life  of  sonship,  which  it  has  been  my  privilege  to 
meet  in  connection  with  the  form  of  thought  on  this  subject 
which  yet  I  feel  constrained  to  reject. 

The  adoption  of  us  as  sons,  as  superadded  to  justification^ by 
faith,  no~"element  of  sonship  being  present  in  the  faith  that 
justifies  us,  nor  exercise  of  fatherliness  contemplated  as  an 
element  in  the  divine  acceptance  of  us,  the  adoption  itself  a 
boon  bestowed  upon  us  in  connection  with  the  imputation  of 
Christ's  merits  to  us, — this  is  a  manner  of  sonship  as  to  which 
it  is  obvious  that  the  confidence  with  which  we  may  so  think  of 
ourselves  as  sons  of  God,  and  draw  near  to  Him  expecting  to 
be  acknowledged  as  such,  is  no  direct  trust  in  a  Father  s  heart 
at  all,  no  trust  in  any  feeling  in  God  of  which  we  are  personally 
the  objects  as  His  offspring,  but  is  in  reality  a  trust  in  the 
judicial  grounds  on  which  the  title  and  place  of  sons  is  granted 
to  us. 

I  know  that  it  is  held  that,  when  in  connection  with  the  faith 
that  justifies,  God  bestows  on  us  the  adoption  of  sons,  He 
gives   us  also  the  spirit  of  sonship,   that  we   may   have    the 


AN  ULTIMATE  TRUTH  FOR  OUR  FAITH.       299 

spiritual  reality  as  well  as  the  name  and  standing.  But^  the 
spirit  of  sonship  is  the  spirit  of  truth,  the  Son  himself  is  the 
truth—"  I  am  the  way,  the  truthy  and  the  life."  That  the  Son 
should  say,  "  I  am  the  way " — "  no  man  cometh  unto  the 
Father,  but  by  me,"  teaches  us  that  sonship  alone  deals  with 
fatherliness  as  fatherliness ;  that  we  must  come  to  God  as  sons, 
or  not  come  at  all.  On  this  co-relativeness  of  sonship  and 
fatherliness  I  have  dwelt  above.  So  also  that  He  should  say, 
"  I  am  the  life"  fixes  our  faith  on  Him  as  our  proper  life 
according  to  the  "  testimony  of  God,  that  God  has  given  to  us 
eternal  life,  and  that  this  life  is  in  His  Son," — but  that  He 
should  say,  and  say  in  I  11 (inanity,  "  I  am  the  truth,"  teaches  us 
that  not  only  is  it  the  case  that  to  come  near  to  the  Father  we 
must  come  near  in  the  Son,  and  that  the  life  of  sonship  is  the 
life  to  which  we  are  called,  but,  besides,  that  to  come  to  God  in 
the  Son,  and  so  to  come  to  Him  as  sons,  is,  and  alone  is,  in 
harmony  with  the  truth  of  our  relation  to  God, 

I  have  in  some  measure  anticipated  this  contrast  between 
sonship  towards  God  as  quickened  in  us  by  the  revelation  to  us 
of  the  Father  by  the  Son,  and  sonship  conceived  of  as  added  to 
our  legal  standing  of  justified  persons  through  the  imputation  to 
us  of  Christ's  merits,  when  noticing  above  the  practical  difficulty 
of  harmonising  in  conscious  experience  two  manners  of  confi- 
dence so  opposite  in  their  nature  as  a  legal  confidence  on  the 
ground  of  the  imputation  to  us  of  a  perfect  righteousness,  and 
a  filial  confidence  such  as  the  faith  of  a  Father's  heart  is  fitted 
to  quicken.  In  truth  the  assumed  filial  confidence  being 
cherished  in  this  dependence  on  the  legal  confidence,  and  the 
fatherliness  conceived  of  being,  not  a  desire  of  the  heart  of  God 
going  forth  towards  us  as  His  offspring  to  which  sonship  is  the 
true  and  right  response,  but  the  divine  acknowledgment  of 
a  standing  granted  to  us  according  to  the  arrangement  assumed, 
though  our  conception  of  the  mercy  and  grace  of  which  we 
assume  ourselves  to  be  the  objects  may  still  be  high,  the  true 
and  simple  feeling  of  dealing  with  a  Father's  heart  is  altogether 
precluded. 


300        GOD  IS  THE  FATHER  OF  OUR  SPIRITS, 

But  thus  to  think  of  the  intercourse  with  God  which  eternal 
life  implies  as  resting  for  its  peace  and  security  on  another 
ground  than  its  own  essential  nature  ; — to  think  of  sonship  as 
cherished  freely  otherwise  than  as  the  natural  response  to  the 
Father's  heart,  to  think  of  the  Father  as  rejoicing  in  this 
sonship  as  present  in  us  otherwise  than  as  the  Father ; — to  feel 
that  the  prodigal  son  feels  secure  in  the  welcome  of  his  forgiv- 
ing father  on  any  other  ground  than  the  fatherly  forgiveness 
itself  which  has  embraced  him,  falling  on  his  neck  and  kissing 
him  ; — to  feel  that  the  Father  is  justified  in  his  own  eyes,  or 
would  justify  himself  in  the  eyes  of  the  rest  of  His  family,  in 
the  gracious  welcome  which  he  accords  to  the  returning  prodi- 
gal, on  any  other  ground  than  that  which  He  expresses  when 
He  says,  "  My  son  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again  f — to  suppose 
that  the  filial  standing  must  rest  on  a  legal  standing,  and  that 
all  this  intercourse  between  the  Father  of  spirits  and  His 
redeemed  offspring  must  be  justified  by  the  imputation  to  them 
of  Christ's  righteousness,  and  that  this  reality  of  communion 
with  the  Father  and  the  Son  must  be  reconciled,  in  this  way  of 
at  least  seeming  fiction,  with  the  moral  government  of  God, 
instead  of  recognising  that  communion  itself  as  what  is  the 
highest  fulfilment  of  moral  government \  and  the  ultimate  and 
perfect  justification  of  all  the  means  which  God  has  employed  in 
bringing  it  to  pass  :  these  are  thoughts  which  can  have  no  place 
in  the  light  in  which  the  Apostle  says — "  It  became  Hi??i  for 
whom  are  all  things,  and  by  whom  are  all  things,  in  bringing 
many  sons  unto  glory  to  make  the  Captain  of  their  salvation 
perfect  through  sufferings." 

The  natural  character  now  claimed  for  the  consciousness  of 
sonship  as  belonging  to  our  communion  with  God  in  Christ, — 
that  is  to  say,  that  it  shall  be  felt  the  due  response  to  the 
Father's  heart,  and  not  the  mere  using  of  a  privilege  and  right 
graciously  conferred  upon  us,  corresponds  with,  or,  I  should 
rather  say,  is  one  with  the  self-evidencing  character  claimed 
above  for  justifying  faith. 

The  liberty  to  call  God  Father,  which  we  feel  in  the  light  of 


AN   ULTIMATE  TRUTH  FOR  OUR  FAITH.        301 

the  revelation  of  the  Father  to  us  by  the  Son,  we  in  that  light 
cannot  but  feel :  for  in  that  light  we  not  only  apprehend 
the  divine  fatherliness,  through  the  perfect  response  of  sonship 
yielded  to  it  by  the  Son  of  God  in  humanity,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  the  sonship  itself,  which  is  that  response,  but  we  have  this 
apprehension  necessarily  with  a  personal  reference  to  ourselves. 

How  important  this  statement  is — assuming  its  truth — those 
will  feel  who  are  acquainted  with  the  questionings  on  the 
subject  of  adoption  by  which  the  most  earnest  and  deeply 
exercised  spirits  have  been  most  tried,  while  their  right  to 
call  God  Father  has  been  conceived  of  by  them  as  turning 
upon  the  previous  question  of  their  justification  through 
imputation  of  Christ's  righteousness,  and  that  again  upon 
the  soundness  of  the  faith  from  which  justification  has  been 
expected.  What  is  here  taught  is  that  to  call  God  Father,  and 
draw  near  to  Him  in  the  confidence  of  sonship,  is  simply  to 
conform  to,  and  walk  in,  the  light  of  life  which  shines  to  us  in 
Christ. 

Assuredly  that  word  from  heaven — "  This  is  my  beloved  Son, 
in  whom  I  am  well  pleased  :  hear  ye  Him  " — each  man  that 
hears  is  called  to  hear  as  a  word  addressed  to  himself, — a 
revelation  of  a  will  in  God  in  relation  to  him.  This  is  not  to  be 
questioned.  Why  is  this  divine  sonship  manifested  in 
humanity  ?  Why,  brother  man,  is  our  attention  called  to  it  ? 
Why  are  we  told  of  the  Father's  being  pleased  in  the  Son  and 
in  this  connexion  bade  to  "  hear  the  Son  ? "  Surely  the 
fatherliness  thus  presented  to  our  faith  is  fatherliness  in  which 
we  are  interested,  for  surely  it  is  interested  in  us — has  desires 
with  reference  to  us  ;  and  surely  the  sonship  on  which  our 
attention  is  thus  fixed  concerns  us,  yea,  can  be  nothing  else 
than  the  very  condition  of  humanity  which  these  desires  of  the 
Father  contemplate  and  seek  for  us.  Therefore  when  we  are 
turned  to  the  kingdom  of  God  within  us, — when  that  spiritual 
constitution  of  things,  which  the  words  that  have  raised  our 
eyes  to  the  Father  and  our  hopes  to  sonship  have  pre- 
supposed, is  revealed  to  our  spiritual  apprehension  ; — when  we 


302      GOD   IS  THE  FATHER   OF  OUR  SPIRITS, 


know  "  that  the  Father  sent  the  Son  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the 
world,"  as  these  words  state  a  condition  of  things  with  the 
advantages  of  which  we  are  encompassed,  and  the  truth 
and  reality  of  which  is  to  be  known  by  us  in  our  own  inner 
being ; — when  that  testimony  of  the  Father  to  the  Son, 
and  of  the  Son  to  the  Father,  which  pervades  the  Scrip- 
tures is  known  by  us  as  also  in  ourselves,  then  what  is 
contemplated  by  the  call  addressed  to  us — "  Hear  ye 
Him,"  is  understood  by  us ; — we  understand  how,  in  the  love 
of  the  Father  of  our  spirits,  the  Son,  in  whom  the  Father 
is  well  pleased,  has  in  Him  the  life  of  sonship  for  us,  and 
how,  through  Him,  and  in  Him,  we  also  may  be  sons  in 
whom  the  Father  shall  be  well  pleased. 

Thus  are  the  outward  preaching  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and 
the  revelation  of  that  kingdom  within  us,  known  in  their  unity, 
in  the  experience  of  salvation  ;  and  the  light  shining  in  the 
scriptures  and  the  light  shining  in  man  are  known  as  one  light, 
— at  once  universal  and  individual,  as  is  the  nature  of  light. 
When  I  hear,  in  the  most  general  reference  to  men,  the  words, 
"  God  has  given  to  us  eternal  life,  and  this  life  is  in  His  Son," 
— "  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased  :  hear 
ye  Him," — I  hear  what  connects  me  in  my  own  thoughts,  as  by 
a  revelation  of  truth,  with  the  fatherliness  that  is  in  God  the 
Father,  and  the  sonship  that  is  in  the  Son  of  God  :  and  so, 
still,  as  the  light  of  life  dawns  on  me  and  brightens,  and  I 
become  a  child  of  light  and  of  the  day,  when  I  know,  in  my  own 
inner  being,  the  Father  drawing  me  to  the  Son,  and  the  Son 
moving  and  quickening  in  me  the  cry,  Abba,  Father,  and  have 
the  illustration  of  a  personal  experience  shed  upon  the  words  of 
Christ — "  No  man  knoweth  the  Son  but  the  Father ;  neither 
knoweth  any  man  the  Father  save  the  Son,  and  He  to  whomso- 
ever the  Son  will  reveal  Him  ;"  still  the  fatherliness  that  is  thus 
calling  me  to  sonship,  the  sonship  that  is  enabling  to  respond 
to  that  fatherliness,  I  know  as  one  receiving  knowledge  of  the 
truth  of  things  ;  my  experience  is  that  of  conforming  to  what  is 
a  revelation  to  me  at  once  of  God  and  of?nan, — that  is  to  say,  as 


AN  ULTIMATE  TRUTH  FOR  OUR  FAITH.       303 

I  am  a  man,  of  myself.  In  obeying,  I  am  obedient  to  the  truth. 
I  do  not,  I  should  say,  I  dare  not,  doubt  the  voice  of  that 
fatherliness  by  which  I  am  drawn  to  the  Son,  or  doubt  that  the 
Son  is  revealed  to  me  by  the  teaching  of  the  Father  for  this  very 
end,  that  I  may  know  the  desire  and  choice  of  the  Father  of  my 
spirit  for  me.  I  do  not,  I  dare  not,  doubt  the  light  of  that 
sonship,  or  that  the  Son  is  truly  teaching  me,  as  well  as  lovingly 
teaching  me,  how  it  is  right  for  me  to  feel  towards  the  Father  of  my 
spirit — the  response  to  His  heart  which  accords  with  the  truth  of 
what  that  heart 'is  m  relation  to  me.  I  do  not  ask,  "  Have  I  exercised 
a  faith  in  Christ  which  has  justified  me,  and  am  I  certain  that 
that  faith  is  so  sound  as  to  warrant  me  to  believe  that  now  I  am 
a  child  of  God,  and  entitled  to  call  Him  Feather?  I  am 
exercising  a  faith  to  which  it  is  a  contradiction  to  doubt  the 
fatherliness  of  my  Father,  or  the  welcome  that  awaits  me  in 
coming  to  Him  as  a  child.  I  am  exercising  a  faith  in  which  it 
is  impossible  for  me  to  be  disobedient  to  the  Son,  quickening 
the  cry,  Abba,  Father,  in  my  spirit. 

I  have  been  at  pains,  in  relation  to  justification  by  faith,  to 
shew  how  faith  excludes  boasting ;  not  by  any  artificial 
arrangement,  nor  at  all  by  denying  to  the  faith  itself  the 
attribute  of  righteousness,  but,  on  the  contrary,  because  it 
is  itself  the  true  righteousness,  and  that  boasting  is  impossible 
in  that  light  of  the  truth  into  which  faith  introduces  ;  for  in 
faith  we  are  beholding  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  no  flesh  shall  glory  in  His  sight.  I  would  add 
here,  that  the  life  of  sonship,  as  now  represented  as  quickened 
in  us,  excludes  boasting. 

That  faith  is  trust  in  God,  as  He  is  revealed  in  Christ, 
excludes,  as  we  have  seen,  boasting,  and  makes  the  righteous- 
ness of  faith  to  be  the  opposite  of  self- righteousness  :  that  this 
faith  apprehends  the  fatherliness  of  God,  and  that  its  responsive 
trust  is  sonship,  this  yet  more  and  more  excludes  boasting. 
The  trust  of  a  child  in  a  father's  heart  is  just  the  perfect 
opposite  of  a  self-righteous  trust ;  for  it  is  a  going  back  to  the 
fountain  of  our  being, — a  dealing  with  that  interest  in  us  which 


304        G0D   IS  THE   FATHER  OF  OUR  SPIRITS, 

was  before  we  did  good  or  evil ;  and  as  cherished  by  us 
sinners  towards  God,  against  whom  we  have  sinned,  such  trust 
deals  with  fatherliness  as  what  has  survived  our  sins  ;  so  that 
our  trust,  so  far  from  being  self-righteous,  implies,  commences 
with  the  confession  of  sin.  Doubtless  this  trust  is  in  itself  holy 
— the  mind  of  the  Son  ;  but  it  is  not  on  that  account  less 
lowly — less  remote  from  boasting.  Are  we  not,  in  cherishing 
it,  "  learning  of  Him  who  is  meek  and  lowly  in  heart?" 

There  is  indeed  a  further  exclusion  of  boasting,  in  the 
consciousness  that  it  is  in  the  Son  that  we  are  approaching  the 
Father, — that  He,  who  made  atonement  for  our  sins  and 
brought  into  humanity  the  everlasting  righteousness  of  sonship, 
is  not  the  mere  pattern  of  our  life,  but  is  Himself  that  life  in  us 
in  which  we  are  able  to  confess  our  sins,  and  to  call  God 
Father  •  that  He  is  the  vine,  that  we  are  the  branches.  But  I 
feel  it  important  that  we  should  realise  that  in  its  own  nature, 
and  apart  from  its  derived  character  as  existing  in  us,  the  con- 
fidence of  sonship  is  essentially  and  necessarily  the  opposite  of 
self  righteousness. 

I  the  more  insist  upon  this,  while  also  desirous  to  fix  atten- 
tion on  that  deepest  sense  of  dependence  on  Christ,  which,  in 
knowing  Him  as  our  life,  our  spirits  prove,  because  I  believe, 
that  the  whole  attraction  to  conscience  which  has  been  found 
in  the  conception  of  an  imputation  of  Christ's  merits  to  us,  has 
been  its  seeming  fitness  to  secure  the  result  of  a  peace  with 
God  free  from  self-righteousness,  and  which  shall  be  really  a 
trust  in  God  and  not  in  ourselves ;  the  doing  away  with  what 
Luther  calls  "  The  monstrous  idea  of  human  merit,  which  must 
by  all  means  be  beat  down;"  and  in  reference  to  which  he 
values  the  law  as  "  a  hammer  with  which  to  break  it  in  pieces." 
This  right  result,  essential  to  the  glory  of  God  in  us,  and  to  our 
being  in  harmony  with  the  truth  of  things  in  the  attitude  of  our 
spirits  towards  God,  the  truth  of  the  life  of  sonship  in  us  secures, 
and  alone  can  secure. 

Nay  more,  the  life  of  sonship  is  not  only  the  purest  and 
simDlest  trust  in   the  heart  of  the  Father,  but  its  nature  is, 


AN   ULTIMATE  TRUTH  FOR  OUR  FAITH.       305 

because  of  the  experience  which  it  implies,  to  be  a  continually 
growing  trust  in  God.  I  must  see  a  Father's  heart  in  God 
towards  me  before  I  can  call  Him  Father ;  but,  in  calling  Him 
Father,  the  consciousness  which  comes  with  so  doing  is  itself  a 
fresh  proof  to  me  that  He  is  my  Father,  and  that  in  so  believing 
I  am  not  welcoming  a  cunningly  devised  fable ;  and  thus 
progress  in  the  life  of  sonship  is  not  the  coming  to  have  a  new 
ground  of  confidence  towards  God,  but  an  experience  which 
enables  us  to  "hold  fast  the  beginning  of  our  confidence"  more 
and  more  firmly.  Experience  in  calling  God  Father  in  spirit 
and  in  truth,  becomes  a  source  of  increased  freedom  in  doing 
so  •  not  because  it  has  created  any  further  or  fresh  title  to  do 
so,  for  it  has  not,  but  because  the  Tightness  that  is  in  this  mind 
towards  God,  its  harmony  with  the  truth  of  our  relation  to  Him, 
and  the  glory  which  it  gives  to  Him,  become  clearer  to  us  in 
that  increased  light  as  to  what  it  is  to  follow  God  as  dear 
children  which  is  implied  in  the  experience  of  doing  so. 

And,  as  this  holds  true  as  to  our  trust  in  the  Father,  so  also, 
as  to  our  trust  in  Christ  as  our  life,  all  experience  of  life  in 
abiding  in  Him  as  a  branch  in  the  vine,  only  develops  into 
deeper  consciousness  the  sense  of  dependence  upon  Him, 
shutting  us  up  to  so  abiding  for  all  expectation  of  well  being ; 
for  the  more  I  know  what  it  is  to  be  able  to  say,  "  I  live,  yet 
not  I,  but  Christ  in  me,"  the  more  simple,  and  absolute,  and 
continuous  will  be  my  living  by  Him.  The  mystery  of  God 
both  of  the  Father  and  of  Christ,  being  thus  experimentally 
known  as  our  fellowship  with  the  Father  and  with  His  Son 
Jesus  Christ,  abounds,  the  fulfilment  of  God's  purpose  in  us 
enlightens  us  more  and  more  in  that  purpose,  and  thereby 
deepens  our  faith  in  it  as  His  purpose. 

I  do  not  feel  that  the  ground  for  faith,  which  is  thus  found  in 
the  experience  of  faith,  has  been  sufficiently  valued,  especially 
when  the  object  has  been  to  save  us  from  looking  for  a  ground 
of  peace  in  ourselves.  We  cannot  be  too  jealous  of  looking  to 
self,  if  we  rightly  discriminate.  But  beyond  all  question,  eternal 
life  experienced  must  have  its  own  proper  consciousness ;  and  the 


306       GOD   IS  THE  FATHER  OF  OUR  SPIRITS, 

apprehension  of  it  as  given  in  Christ,  and  the  consciousness  of 
receiving  it  and  being  alive  in  it  as  a  conscious  life,  must  be 
trusted  to  to  exclude  self-righteousness  as  light  excludes  dark- 
ness, and  not  otherwise. 

It  seems  to  me  that  Luther,  notwithstanding  his  high  estimate 
of  the  righteousness  that  is  in  faith,  and  notwithstanding  the 
power  to  prevail  with  God  which  he  recognises  as  being  in  the 
feeblest  utterance  of  the  cry  "  Father,"  has  not  given  its  true 
place  to  the  subjective  experience  of  the  life  of  sonship.  I 
have  felt  justified  in  saying  above,  that  the  great  Reformer  was 
the  preacher  of  justification  by  faith,  according  to  a  truer  and 
stricter  meaning  of  the  expression  than  it  has  had,  or  could 
have  had,  in  the  teaching  of  those  who  have  not  understood  as 
he  did,  either  that  condition  of  things  which  the  gospel  reveals 
to  our  faith,  and  which  by  its  very  nature  excludes  boasting,  or 
that  excellent  glory  which  God  has  in  the  faith  which  appre- 
hends and  trusts  God,  according  to  the  revelation  of  Himself 
which  He  has  granted  to  us  in  Christ,  and  in  the  exercise  of 
which  our  souls  "  make  their  boast  in  God."  The  difference  is 
indeed  broad  and  unmistakable  between  the  faith  that  would 
correspond  with  the  revelation  of  a  work  of  Christ  performed 
on  behalf  of  an  elected  number,  by  which  He  purchased  and 
secured  for  them  certain  benefits  to  be  in  due  time  imparted  to 
them, — according  to  the  teaching  of  Dr.  Owen  and  President 
Edwards;  or  the  faith  that  would  correspond  with  the  modified 
Calvinism,  which  preaches  a  work  of  Christ  for  all  men,  by 
which  a  foundation  has  been  laid  on  which  God  may  righteously 
proceed  in  dispensing  benefits  to  those  who  will  receive  them 
on  that  footing ;  and  that  faith  to  which  Luther  called  men, 
when  he  proclaimed  a  work  of  Christ  by  which  He  had 
redeemed  us,  even  all  men,  "  from  the  law  and  death  and  all 
evils,"  and  procured  for  us  the  adoption  of  sons,  so  that  we  are 
not  under  the  law,  but  under  grace,  and  are  called  to  believe, 
directly  and  personally,  and  with  appropriation  to  ourselves, 
because  it  is  so  in  truth,  that  Christ  is  the  Father's  gift  to  us, 
that  He  is  made  of  God  unto  us  wisdom,  and  righteousness, 


AN  ULTIMATE   TRUTH  FOR  OUR  FAITH.       307 

and  sanctification,  and  redemption.  For,  however  far  Luther 
is  from  shedding  light  on  the  nature  of  the  atonement,  however 
little  of  the  spiritual  light  which  he  had  himself  he  has  imparted 
to  us  in  an  intellectual  form  which  we  can  understand,  and 
however  startling,  and  incapable  of  acceptance  according  to 
their  sound,  are  the  expressions  of  which  he  makes  choice  in 
speaking  of  the  relation  to  our  sin,  into  which  Christ  came  in 
working  out  our  redemption :  these  things  in  him  are  very  clear, 
viz.  that  he  saw  the  Father  in  the  Son,  and  therefore  had  con- 
fidence towards  God,  because  of  what  he  thus  saw  God  to  be ; 
and  that  he  saw  Christ,  and  in  Him  all  things  pertaining  to  life 
and  to  godliness,  as  the  gift  of  God  to  men,  to  all  men,  to 
every  man  : — so  that  he  neither  spoke  of  God  as  having  come 
under  an  obligation  to  do  certain  things  for  an  unknown  some ; 
nor  as  having  put  it  in  His  own  power  righteously  to  extend 
mercy  to  all  who  would  receive  it  on  the  ground  on  which  it 
was  offered ;  but  as  having  already  done  the  greatest  thing  for 
all  men,  and  as  calling  upon  all  men  to  believe  and  enter  upon 
the  enjoyment  of  what  He  had  done. 

Yet  while  Luther's  teaching  has  all  the  superiority  which  is 
implied  in  a  truer  conception  of  what  is  presented  to  our  faith, 
as  well  as  the  advantage  of  a  juster  appreciation  of  the  excellent 
nature  of  faith  viewed  in  itself,  it  seems  to  me,  as  compared 
with  the  teaching  of  the  Apostles,  wanting  in  its  setting  forth 
of  tha£j£__which  the  gospel  calls  man;  a  defect  which,  in 
reference  to  the  two-fold  revelation  in  Christ,  the  revelation  of 
fatherliness  and  of  sonship,  may  be  expressed  by  saying,  that 
his  preaching  is  more  a  setting  forth  of  the  fatherliness  in  which 
we  are  to  trust,  than  of  the  sonship  to  which  we  are  called. 
Luther  keeps  before  the  mind  God  as  He  is  revealed  to  be 
trusted  in, — trusted  in  at  this  moment  by  those  who  have  never 
trusted  in  Him  before;  rather  than  the  contemplated  life  of 
Christ  in  us,  in  the  conscious  experience  of  which  we  are  to 
grow  day  by  day  in  the  assurance  of  faith  and  free  life  of  son- 
ship.  I  do  not  at  all  mean  that  Luther  would  deny  the  sound- 
ness of  all  such  increase  of  freedom,  assuming  it  to  be  indeed 


/ 


308       GOD   IS  THE   FATHER  OF  OUR  SPIRITS, 

that  which  has  now  been  spoken  of,  viz.  increased  trust  in  God, 
and  in  His  Christ,  through  the  experience  of  trusting;  but  that 
this  he  does  not  set  forth  or  dwell  on.  Therefore,  while  the 
history  of  his  own  first  peace  in  God  is,  most  profitably  for  us, 
present  in  all  his  commending  of  the  gospel  and  putting  away 
of  the  law,  there  is  still  in  his  renewed  urging  of  the  difficulty  of 
trusting  in  Christ  in  seasons  of  deep  realisation  of  our  sins,  a 
contrast — and,  to  my  mind,  an  instructive  contrast — to  the 
calm  consciousness  of  being  living  the  new  eternal  life  which 
breathes  in  such  words  as  these,  "  We  know  that  the  Son  of 
God  is  come,  and  hath  given  us  an  understanding,  that  we  may 
know  Him  that  is  true,  and  we  are  in  Him  that  is  true,  even 
in  His  Son  Jesus  Christ.  This  is  the  true  God  and  eternal 
life." 

There  is  a  state  of  mind  in  relation  to  the  view  now  taken  of 
the  sonship  quickened  in  us  in  faith,  which  it  is  right  here  to 
notice.  The  character  of  salvation  as  now  represented,  as 
what  is  accomplished  in  us  by  our  being  "  brought  out  of  dark- 
ness into  God's  marvellous  light,"  it  is  felt  difficult  to  harmonise 
with  the  greatness  of  the  change  which  has  come  to  pass  in 
those  who  are  saved,  both  as  respects  the  condition  of  their 
own  being,  and  their  relation  to  God.  It  is  asked,  "  If  God  is 
the  Father  of  our  spirits  antecedent  to  our  faith  in  Christ,  and 
that  the  gospel  reveals  Him  as  our  Father,  how  does  the 
Apostle  say — '  In  this  are  the  children  of  God  manifest,  and 
the  children  of  the  devil?'  And  how,  when  the  Jews  said, 
'  God  is  our  Father,'  did  the  Lord  seem  to  deny  that  it  was 
so  ? — '  If  God  were  your  Father  ye  would  love  me  .  .  .  ye 
are  of  your  father  the  devil.' "  The  harmony  between  the 
abiding  truth  of  our  relation  to  God  as  we  are  all  His  offspring, 
and  the  oppositeness  of  the  conditions  of  our  being,  which  are 
by  choice  of  our  own  will,  according  as  we  receive  the  light  of 
Christ  or  believe  the  devil's  lie,  not  being  understood,  it  is  felt 
that  the  expressions  used  in  relation  to  those  who  are  alive  to 
God  through  faith  in  Christ  cannot  have  their  truth  simply  in 
the  spiritual  conformity  of  these  individual  men  with  a  relation 


AN   ULTIMATE  TRUTH   FOR  OUR  FAITH.       309 

of  all  men  to  God,  and  a  constitution  of  things  in  Christ  which 
embraces  all  men  ;  and  therefore  the  gospel  is  received  only  as 
a  revelation  of  a  willi?igness  in  God  to  become  our  Father ;  and 
so  a  manifestation  of  the  highest  benevolence,  but  not  the  revela- 
tion of  the  interest  of  the  Father  of  our  spirits  in  us  as  His 
offspring. 

In  consistency  with  this  conception  of  the  gospel,  it  is  held 
that  in  such  discourses  ©f  our  Lord  as  that  recorded  in  the 
5th,  6th,  and  7th  chapters  of  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  the  use 
of  the  name  "  Father  "  on  which  I  have  dwelt  above  as  a  part 
of  our  Lord's  coming  to  men  in  His  Father's  name,  is  not  to 
be  understood  as  a  claim  made  for  God,  and  the  setting  forth 
of  the  conception  of  God  with  which  men  ought  to  approach 
Him,  but  as  assuming  faith  and  justification  and  adoption ;  so 
that  to  say,  "  When  ye  pray,  say,  Our  Father,"  was  not  to  teach 
men  what  they  were  to  believe  God  already  to  be,  but  what  He 
would  beco?ne  if  they  believed  :  so  also  that  to  say,  "  If  ye  then, 
being  evil,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts  unto  your  children,  how 
much  more  will  your  heavenly  Father  give  the  Holy  Spirit  to 
them  that  ask  Him  ?"  was  not  intended  by  our  Lord  to  be 
understood  as  the  proclaiming  of  a  will  in  God  to  impart  His 
Spirit  to  all  because  He  was  the  Father  of  the  spirits  of  all 
flesh,  but  only  of  such  a  will  as  to  those  who  had  become  His 
children  by  faith. 

If  it  were  only  meant  that  our  acting  on  such  teaching  implies 
faith,  and  that  we  only  truly  pray  the  Lord's  prayer  in  the 
measure  in  which  we  receive  the  Son  to  reign  in  our  hearts, 
there  would  be  in  this  no  more  than  a  most  needed  warning, — 
seeing  the  great  self-deception  connected  with  the  use  of  that 
prayer  in  a  way  of  mere  fleshly  repetition  of  it,  void  of  all  life 
of  sonship.  But  this  is  not  what  is  meant ;  and  so  the  parable 
of  the  prodigal  son,  on  which  so  much  weight  has  now  been 
laid,  is  denied  to  be  a  preaching  of  the  gospel,  or  a  revelation 
of  the  interest  with  which  God  regards  men — all  men — while 
yet  in  their  sins  ;  its  comfort  being  reduced  to  what,  in  con- 
sistency, can  only  be  offered  to  men  on  the  assumption  that 


3io       GOD  IS  THE  FATHER  OF  OUR  SPIRITS, 

they  have  been  adopted  through  faith,  and  are  such  as  only 
need  to  be  encouraged  to  return  to  their  first  love. 

But  while  I  notice  this  state  of  mind,  and  do  so  in  much 
sympathy  with  the  deep  sense  which  it  implies  of  the  great 
issues  involved  in  passing  from  death  to  life,  I  do  not  do  so 
with  the  purpose  of  attempting  to  offer  any  help  in  relation  to 
it  that  has  not  been  presented  already  in  these  pages.  To  my 
mind  the  expression  of  which  I  have  made  so  much  use — 
"  My  son  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again,"  both  accords  with  the 
great  change  that  faith  implies,  vindicating  the  strongest  lan- 
guage in  which  its  important  results  are  ever  expressed,  and 
also  fully  recognises  our  original  and  abiding  relation  to  God 
as  the  Father  of  our  spirits. 

But  while  some  feel  as  if  it  were  taking  from  the  sense  of 
salvation  with  which  they  themselves  call  God  Father  as 
believing  in  Christ,  thus  to  regard  Him  as  the  Father  of  the 
spirits  of  all  flesh,  others  can  testify,  that  the  perfect  freedom 
of  sonship  has  only  been  attained  by  them  in  seeing  the  heart 
of  the  heavenly  Father  towards  all  men,  to  be  revealed  in 
Christ,  and  the  life  of  sonship  manifested  in  Christ  to  be  the 
fulfilment  of  the  divine  purpose  in  themselves,  because  it  is  the 
fulfilment  of  the  divine  purpose  in  man. 

I  have  just  noticed  the  increased  freedom  in  living  the  life 
of  sonship,  and  increased  -assurance  of  being  in  the  light  of 
God,  which  comes  through  the  actual  experience  of  a  true  and 
living  Christianity.  Now,  while  this  is,  in  one  view,  personal, 
it  is  in  another  view  only  a  deeper  certainty  of  knowledge  as 
to  the  will  of  God  in  relation  to  all  men,  and  the  "  common 
salvation."  It  is  the  record  that  God  has  given  to  us,  that  is, 
to  men,  eternal  life,  and  that  this  life  is  in  His  Son,  which  he 
that  believeth  hath  in  himself.  Therefore  is  the  Christian  a 
living  Epistle  of  the  grace  of  God. 

The  progress  of  mind  often  experienced  in  relation  to  the 
gospel  is  very  instructive.  Some  who  have  at  one  time  con- 
templated the  atonement  as  having  reference  to  an  elected 
number,  and  have  then  felt  that  their  own  personal  hold  of 


AN   ULTIMATE  TRUTH   FOR  OUR  FAITH.        311 

salvation  would  be  weakened  if  Christ  had  died  for  all  men, 
have  afterwards  come  to  see,  that  they  could  never  have  felt 
intelligently  certain  that  Christ  had  died  for  them,  excepting  as 
that  fact  was  included  in  the  fact  that  He  had  died  for  all  men  ; 
and  the  unsatisfactory  shifts  had  recourse  to,  in  the  attempt  to 
combine  a  Tree  preaching  of  Christ  with  a  limited  atonement, 
have  become  very  palpable  to  them,  and  they  have  wondered 
how,  saying  that,  "  though  Christ  had  died  only  for  some,  He 
was  freely  offered  to  all,"  could  ever  have  been  received  by 
them  as  an  adequate  foundation  for  an  appropriating  and  per- 
sonal faith.  And  so,  as  to  the  results  of  the  work  of  redemp- 
tion,— what  we  are  called  to  apprehend  as  true  antecede?it  to 
our  faith — what  the  statement  "  that  God  hasgwen  to  us  eternal 
life,  and  that  this  life  is  in  His  Son,"  amounts  to, — many  are  for 
a  time  satisfied  with  the  apprehension  of  a  mercy  in  God  em- 
bracing them,  such  as  Christ's  death  for  their  sins  implies, — a 
will  in  God  to  bestow  benefits  on  them  through  Christ,  who 
afterwards  come  to  see,  that  a  relation  to  them  more  internal  to 
their  own  being  is  alike  implied  in  the  language  of  Scripture, 
and  required  by  their  need, — if  indeed  they  are  to  be  alive  to 
God  through  faith  in  Jesus  Christ.  They,  therefore,  welcome 
that  fuller  light  of  truth  which  at  once  reveals  to  them  a  gulf  as 
left  between  them  and  Christ  by  the  simple  fact  of  an  atone- 
ment external  to  their  own  being,  and  that  gulf  as  done  away 
with  in  the  actual  nearness  of  Christ  to  their  spirits, — His 
presence  in  them  as  their  true  life.  For  they  now  understand 
the  teaching  of  the  Father,  and  His  drawing  of  us  to  the  Son, 
as  what  is  in  the  Spirit,  and  not  in  the  Scriptures  only,  and  as 
what  directs  us  to  Christ,  as  He  is  present  in  our  inner  being, 
there  where  the  sap  of  the  vine  passes  into  the  branch — a 
present  life  to  be  welcomed  or  rejected — the  ingrafted,  in- 
breathed word,  which  is  able  to  save  our  souls.  To  this 
presence  of  Christ  in  us  is  the  testimony  of  God — "  that  He 
has  given  to  us  eternal  life,  and  that  this '  life  is  in  His  Son," 
now  known  to  refer.  And  as  now  the  literal  spiritual  truth  of 
the  testimony  that  God  has  given  this  gift,  and   brought  it  into 


312       GOD  IS  THE   FATHER  OF  OUR  SPIRITS, 

the  needed  nearness — and  if  He  had  not,  how  should  we  ? — is 
apprehended,  so  now  also  the  manner  of  the  teaching  of  the 
Son,  the  manner  of  His  shewing  us  the  Father,  is  understood. 
For  it  is  found  that,  according  as  we  receive  the  testimony  of 
the  Father  to  the  Son,  and  in  obedience  of  faith,  receive  the 
Son  as  our  true  life,  and  in  Him  call  God  Father,  the  divine 
fatherliness  becomes  known  by  us  as  it  can  be  known  to  sonship 
alone.  For,  as  in  respect  of  the  natural  relation  which  typifies 
the  spiritual,  where  a  father  and  his  children  are  present 
together  with  others  also  not  his  offspring,  the  children  alone, 
yea,  the  children  who  know  that  they  look  upon  their  father, 
see — with  the  eyes  of  the  heart — see  a  father ;  so  also  in  the 
higher  region  in  which  we  now  are  the  Son  enables  us,  God's 
offspring,  to  see  our  heavenly  Father,  when,  receiving  Christ  as 
our  life,  we  in  Him  raise  to  the  Father  the  eyes  and  the  heart 
of  true  sonship. 

In  thus  receiving  and  obeying  the  testimony  of  the  Father  to 
the  Son,  and,  in  consequence,  knowing  the  Father  as  the  Son 
knows  Him,  and  gives  us  to  know  Him,  is  the  deepest  manner 
of  experience  of  that  word — "  The  secret  of  the  Lord  is  with 
them  that  fear  Him  and  He  will  shew  them  His  covenant." 

But  let  us  be  clear  as  to  the  elements  of  our  consciousness 
when  this  is  our  conscious  history.  We  have  not  by  any  move- 
ment of  our  own  being  caused  this  drawing  of  the  Father ;  we 
have  only  yielded  to  it ; — neither  have  we  by  any  movement  of 
our  being  brought  the  Son  thus  near  to  us.  He  was  thus  near 
to  us  even  when  we  knew  it  not.  Only  under  the  teaching  of 
God  we  have  Christ  revealed  in  us  the  hope  of  glory.  The 
mystery  hid  from  ages  and  generations  is  made  known  to  us. 
Therefore,  understanding  the  nature  of  the  grace  of  which  we 
find  ourselves  the  objects,  we  recognize  it  as  that  gracious 
kingdom  of  God  within  us  which  the  gospel  proclaims.  We 
find  our  feet  in  a  large  place, — we  are  consciously  in  circum- 
stances to  receive  arid  obey  the  word  of  Christ  "Abide  in  me;" 
the  personality  of  these  circumstances  in  relation  to  us  not 
being  less,  nor  the  importance  of  the  issues  that  depend  on  the 


AN  ULTIMATE  TRUTH  FOR  OUR  FAITH.        313 

faith  of  them  less  either,  because  the  grace  in  which  we  stand 
is  the  "common  salvation."  And,  like  the  man  who  at  one 
time  felt  that  to  believe  that  Christ  had  died  for  all  would 
weaken  his  own  conscious  hold  of  salvation,  but  who  has  sub- 
sequently understood  that  unless  Christ  died  for  all  there  was 
no  certainty  that  He  had  died  for  him ;  so,  if  we  ever  felt  a 
distinctive  and  elective  character  in  the  divine  drawing  which 
draws  to  Christ,  and  a  distinctive  and  elective  character  in 
Christ  teaching  us  to  call  God  Father,  an  element  in  our 
religious  peace,  we  now  find  the  stability  and  depth  of  that 
peace  to  consist  in  the  unindividual,  the  universal  character  of 
that  testimony  of  the  Father  to  the  Son,  and  of  that  testimony 
of  the  Son  to  the  Father,  in  which  we  are  rejoicing  with  an 
individual  and  personal  hearing  and  obedience  of  faith.  Surely 
that  others  refuse  God's  teaching  no  more  affects  my  certainty 
that  I  am  receiving  the  light  of  truth  in  welcoming  that  teaching, 
than  that  others  are  refusing  Christ,  for  whom  He  died  as  truly 
as  for  me,  affects  my  peace  in  trusting  in  His  death  for  me. 
Nay,  that  the  voice  of  the  Eternal  Wisdom  to  which  I  listen  is 
"  unto  the  sons  of  men,"  and  to  me  individually,  just  as  I  am 
one  of  the  sons  of  men,  is  one  element  in  my  certainty  that  it  is 
the  voice  of  God. 

It  is  a  remarkable  and  instructive  fact,  that  the  experience 
that  the  faith  of  a  work  of  Christ  without  us,  which  left  us  with- 
out the  knowledge  of  a  presence  and  power  of  Christ  within  us, 
was  inadequate  to  sustain  the  intelligent  purpose  of  living  the 
life  of  sonship, — and  that  the  recognition  of  a  nearer  relation 
to  Christ  was  needed, — has  been  to  some  the  attraction  of 
the  doctrine  of  baptismal  regeneration;  the  spiritual  change 
in  our  inner  being,  so  conceived  of,  seeming  to  supply  that 
living  link  with  Christ  which  has  been  felt  to  be  necessary  to 
our  living  by  Him,  and  which  the  fact  of  the  relation  of  Christ's 
work  to  all  men  did  not  provide.  Yet  the  difference  between 
a  spiritual  relation  to  Christ  as  our  life,  revealed  in  the  preached 
gospel,  and  made  known  to  us  as  a  spiritual  reality  in  our  own 
inner  being  by  the  divine  teaching,  (the  drawing  of  us  to  the 


314        GOD   IS  THE  FATHER  OF  OUR  SPIRITS, 

Son  by  the  Father,)  and  such  a  relation  as  coming  into  existence 
in  connexion  with  the  ordinance  of  baptism,  and  subsequently 
assumed  in  a  way  of  faith  in  that  ordinance,  is  one  of  the 
greatest  possible  amount  and  greatest  possible  importance. 

Christian  baptism  is  into  "  the  name  of  God,  the  Father,  and 
the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit.71  It  relates  to  a  gospel  proclaim- 
ing that  name.  It  is  administered  to  those  capable  of  intelligent 
apprehension  of  the  gospel,  as  believing  in  that  name  as  the 
true  name  of  God,  and  that  in  the  light  of  which  they  see  their 
relations  to  Him.  Its  administration  to  infants  is  only  under- 
standable on  the  assumption  that  they  are  already  interested  in 
that  name  of  God,  and  that  parents  and  ministers  of  Christ 
know  them  to  be  so,  and  are  justified  in  bringing  them  up  in 
the  faith  of  that  name  as  the  true  name  of  God.  But  that  we 
should  find  in  our  baptism  more  than  is  in  the  name  into  which 
we  have  been  baptised,  and  that  "  more,"  that  spiritual  relation 
to  Christ  in  the  light  of  which  we  can  alone  hear  and  respond 
to  the  call  to  follow  God  as  dear  children  ;  this  is  in  effect,  to 
believe  about  baptism  that  which  would  make  it  a  contradiction 
of  that  name  of  God  into  which  we  are  baptised.  For  to  say 
that  baptism  brings  us  into  the  needed  spiritual  relation  to 
Christ  as  our  life  is  to  say  that  we  were  not  in  it  antecedently 
to  baptism,  that  the  grace  which  the  gospel  reveals  to  our  faith 
has  not  amounted  to  this ;  that  is  to  say,  that  we  might  know 
the  name  of  God  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  and 
yet  not  feel  in  possession  of  the  light  of  life. 

I  would  not  have  risked  any  distraction  of  thought  by  the 
notice  of  this  subject  here,  were  it  not  for  the  preciousness  in 
my  apprehension  of  that  sense  of  the  need  of  a  personal  relation 
to  Christ  with  which  to  begin  to  live  to  God,  which  the  doctrine 
of  baptismal  regeneration  at  once  recognises  and  misdirects. 
As  to  the  more  usual  objection  to  the  doctrine  of  baptismal 
regeneration,  viz.  that  it  hinders  the  sense  of  the  necessity  of 
being  personally  alive  to  God  as  alone  a  condition  of  justifiable 
peace ;  I  do  not  see  how  it  is  possible  for  any  thoughtful  mind 
to  feel  at  rest  in  the  contemplation  of  a  fact  of  this  kind,  what- 


AN  ULTIMATE  TRUTH   FOR  OUR  FAITH.       315 

ever  it  may  be  believed  to  have  implied,  while  that  fact  has 
been  common  to  the  history  of  all  the  baptised,  and  has  not 
hindered  any  subsequent  manner  or  measure  of  evil.  No  man 
can  believe  that  baptism  has  secured  his  salvation :  at  the 
utmost  it  can  only  be  conceived  of  as  placing  the  human  spirit 
in  a  higher  spiritual  condition ;  which  if  it  implies  the  capacity 
of  higher  good,  implies  also  that  of  greater  evil — a  deeper  fall. 
And  so  all  who  believe  in  baptismal  regeneration,  whether 
Romanists  or  Protestants,  would  speak  of  it. 

2.  What  affects  the  conception  we  form  of  the  sonship 
towards  God  to  which  the  gospel  calls  us,  must  in  a  correspond- 
ing way  affect  our  conception  of  that  consciousness  of  brother- 
hood with  man  to  which  we  are  also  called.  The  light  of  truth 
in  which  I  see  God  as  my  Father  is  the  light  in  which  I  see 
men  as  my  brethren.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  gospel  does 
not  reveal  God  to  me  as  my  Father,  neither  does  it  reveal  men 
to  me  as  my  brethren. 

I  have  considered  above  that  fulfilment  of  the  righteousness 
of  the  law,  which  takes  place  in  us  when  we  walk  not  after  the 
flesh,  but  after  the  spirit,  and  which  the  Apostle  represents  as 
the  result  which  God  contemplated  when  He  sent  His  Son  in 
the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  and  as  a  sacrifice  for  sin,  and  so 
condemned  sin  in  the  flesh  ;  and  I  then  illustrated  its  relation 
to  sonship  as  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  the  life  that  was  in  Christ, 
in  which  the  power  was  found  to  make  free  from  the  law  of  sin 
and  death.  The  righteousness  of  the  law  is  to  love  men  as 
well  as  to  love  God;  and  its  fulfilment  therefore  implies  love  to 
men  as  well  as  love  to  God.  But  the  life  of  love  which  we 
have  in  Christ,  which  is  sonship  towards  God,  is,  in  being  so, 
brotherhood  towards  men ;  and  as  it  is  in  being  sonship  that  it 
fulfils  the  first  commandment,  so  it  is  in  being  brotherhood  that 
it  fulfils  the  second  commandment.  Therefore,  as  it  is  true 
that  until  we  know  God  as  our  Father  we  cannot  love  Him  with 
all  our  heart,  and  mind,  and  soul,  and  strength ;  so  is  it  also 
true  that  until  we  know  men  as  our  brethren  we  cannot  love 
our  neighbours  as  ourselves. 


316       GOD  IS  THE  FATHER  OF  OUR  SPIRITS, 

We  know  when  the  question  was  put  to  our  Lord,  by  one 
willing  to  justify  himself  by  the  law,  "who  is  my  neighbour?" 
how  our  Lord  answered.  Let  us  not  under  the  gospel  be  found 
asking,  "  who  is  my  brother  ?  "  or  coming  to  conclusions  as  to 
the  answer  of  that  question  which  will  leave  us  in  the  position 
of  finding  that  some  are  our  neighbours  who  are  not  our  breth- 
ren :  for  to  find  a  neighbour  who  is  not  a  brother,  is  to  find  a 
neighbour  whom  I  cannot  love  as  I  love  myself;  for  unless 
I  can  feel  towards  him  as  towards  a  brother,  unless  in  the  life 
of  brotherhood  given  to  me  in  Christ  I  can  see  him  with 
the  eyes  of  a  brother,  and  love  him  with  the  heart  of  a  brother, 
I  cannot  love  him  in  spirit  and  in  truth  as  I  love  myself. 

It  thus  more  and  more  appears  that  the  question  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  atonement  is  in  truth  nothing  else  than  the  question 
"  what  is  Christianity  ?  "  It  is  so,  as  we  have  seen,  as  to  the 
God-ward  aspect  of  the  eternal  life  given  to  us  in  Christ.  It  is 
so,  we  now  see,  as  to  the  man-ward  aspect  of  that  life  also. 
In  contemplating  the  eternal  life  in  Christ  as  taking  the  form 
of  the  atonement,  the  outcoming  of  love  has  been  seen  to  be 
one  and  the  same  thing  as  sonship  towards  God  and  brother- 
hood towards  man  ;  and  all  that  has  been  presented  to  our  faith 
as  entering  into  the  work  of  Christ  has  appeared  to  have  been 
equally  called  for  by  love  to  God  and  by  love  to  man, — a  self- 
sacrifice  which  was  at  once  devotedness  to  God  and  devotedness  to 
man.  The  eternal  life  being  unchanging  in  its  nature,  it  follows, 
as  urged  above,  that  what  it  was  in  Christ  as  an  atonement,  it 
will  be  in  us  as  salvation.  Therefore  Christ,  as  the  Lord  of 
our  spirits  and  our  love,  devotes  us  to  Cod,  and  devotes  us  to  men, 
in  the  fellowship  of  His  self  sacrifice. 

This  He  does  in  giving  us  to  know  God  as  our  Father  and 
men  as  our  brethren.  Seen  in  the  light  of  God,  our  state  of 
sin  and  life  of  self  is  solitary  in  all  aspects  of  it.  In  it  we  are 
"  orphans  of  the  heart,"  brotherless  as  well  as  fatherless  \  for  in 
it  the  life  of  true  brotherhood  is  as  unknown  in  relation  to  man 
as  that  of  true  sonship  is  in  relation  to  God.  "God  setteth  the 
solitary  in  families."     This  is  accomplished  for  us  spiritually  in 


AN   ULTIMATE  TRUTH  FOR  OUR  FAITH.        317 

our  passing  from  death  unto  life,  "  for  by  this  we  know  that  we 
have  passed  from  death  unto  life,  because  we  love  the  brethren. 
He  that  loveth  not  his  brother  abideth  in  death."  Christ  gives 
us  to  possess  not  God  only,  but  men  also  as  our  riches,  the 
unsearchable  riches  which  we  have  in  Him.  But,  I  say  in 
doing  so  He  is,  at  the  same  time,  devoting  us  to  God  and  to 
men,  in  the  fellowship  of  His  self-sacrifice.  He  thus  calls  us  to 
poverty,  in  calling  us  to  the  true  riches ;  calls  us  to  have  noth- 
ing, in  calling  us  to  possess  all  things ;  and  thus  the  pearl  of 
great  price,  which  is  given  us  without  money  and  without  price, 
while  it  is  above  all  price,  is  yet  that  of  which  it  is  said,  that  a 
man  must  sell  all  that  he  has,  that  he  may  buy  that  pearl.  If  I 
am  to  be  rich  in  the  consciousness  of  having  God  as  my 
Father,  this  must  be  in  that  entire  devotion  of  my  being  to  Him 
which  is  in  loving  the  Lord  my  God,  with  all  my  heart,  and 
mind,  and  soul,  and  strength.  If  I  am  to  be  rich  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  having  men  as  my  brethren,  it  must  be  in  loving 
my  neighbour  as  myself. 

Here  it  may  occur,  that  though  to  say  that  Christ  gives  me 
God  as  my  Father  has  indeed  a  gospel  sound,  this  is  not  felt 
equally  as  to  the  statement  that  He  gives  me  men  as  my 
brethren.  Yet  are_the  gifts  related,  inseparably  connected; 
their  bond  being  the  relation  of  the  second  commandment  to 
the  first.  No  doubt  the  difference,  and  more  especially  the 
immediate  difference,  between  these  gifts  is  very  great  in  all 
views,  but  especially  in  this,  that,  by  the  latter,  Christ  lays  a 
weight  upon  me,  the  burden  of  others  ;  while,  by  the  former,  He 
lays_jny_ burden  on  God,  enabling  me  to  cast  all  my  cares  upon 
Him,  knowing  that  He  careth  for  me.  Yet  it  is  an  obvious 
comfort  here  that  the  burden  of  others,  which  He  lays  upon 
me^being  truly  borne  by  me,  becomes  a  part  of  that  burden 
which  He  enables  me  to  cast  upon  God. 

But  that  we  may  see  the  whole  transaction  in  both  its  parts, 
that  which  refers  to  our  relation  with  men,  as  well  as  that  which 
refers  to  our  relation  to  God — as  one  grace,  we  must  see  it  in 
the  light  of  that  word;  "  He  that  WetrTnoF  his  brother  whom 


3l8        GOD   IS  THE   FATHER   OF  OUR  SPIRITS, 

he  hath  seen,  how  can  he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen?" 
In  the  life  of  love  which  we  have  in  Christ,  not  only  will  God 
have  His  proper  preciousness  to  us,  but  men  also  will  have 
theirs— as  was  Christ's  own  case.  Love  will  go  out  to  men  as 
well  as  to  God,  though  its  goings  out  may  be,  in  the  one  case, 
with  sorrow  and  anguish  of  spirit,  while  in  the  other,  it  is  with 
peace  and  joy.  Neither  can  we  know  the  fellowship  of  our 
Lord's  peace  and  joy,  as  what  belongs  to  the  life  which  we  have 
in  Him  in  the  one  aspect  of  it,  while  we  refuse  to  share  with 
Him  the  sorrow  and  anguish  which  pertain  to  His  life  in  the 
other  aspect  of  it.  If  we  refuse  to  be  in  Christ  the  brothers:  of 
men,  i^e  cannot  be  in  Christ  the  sons  of  God.  This  is  in  another 
form  of  words  our  Lord's  teaching,  when  He  says,  "If  ye 
forgive  not  men  their  trespasses,  neither  will  your  Father  forgive 
you  your  trespasses."  We  must  die  to  self  in  the  fellowship  of 
the  deatli  of  Christ,  if  we  would  live  to  God;  and,  so  dying  as 
to  live  to  God,  we  shall  live  to  each  other  also. 

Self  is  essential  and  necessary  solitude,  with  whatever  society 
and  shew  of  social  life  it  may  encompass  itself.  In  the  inmost 
circle  oi  our  being  we  abide  alone,  until,  in  the  death  of  self, 
the  life  of  God  is  quickened.  Then  God  becomes  the  centre 
which  self  was  while  yet  we  were  as  gods  to  ourselves,  and  then 
the  harmony  of  the  first  and  second  commandment  is  known 
by  us.  We  find  that  Christ,  in  reconciling  us  to  God,  has 
reconciled  us  to  men  ;  and  though  comfort,  and  peace,  and  joy 
alone  come  out  of  the  former  of  these  results  of  His  love,  and 
sorrow,  and  vexation  of  spirit,  yea,  fellowship  in  Christ's  own 
sorrow,  may  come  abundantly  out  of  its  latter  result,  yet,  even 
as  to  this  latter,  the  sorrow  is  not  unmixed.  If  the  afflictions  of 
Christ  abound  in  us,  our  consolation,  even  as  respects  men, 
shall  also  abound  through  Christ ;  and  if  men  are  a  weight 
upon  our  spirits,  and  a  deep  and  constant  sorrow  as  they  never 
were  before,  yet  shall  we  know  now,  as  we  could  not  before, 
the  fellowship  of  the  joy  that  is  in  heaven  over  sinners  that 
repent ;  and,  in  the  communion  of  saints,  shall  know  what  man 
can  be  to  man  when  met  together  in  the  pure  light  and  life  of 


AN  ULTIMATE  TRUTH   FOR  OUR  FAITH.       319 

the  divine  love.  While  as  to  the  hope  set  before  us  we  know, 
that  united  to  men  by  the  bond  of  that  love  in  which  Christ  died 
for  them,  our  fellowship  in  His  death  will  prove  the  seed  and 
earnest  of  fellowship  in  His  joy  in  that  ultimate  result  in  which 
He  shall  see  of  the  travail  of  His  soul,  and  shall  be  satisfied. 

Self  is  most  unwilling  to  die,  and  can  gather  around  it  so 
many  sweetenings  of  life  in  the  form  of  social  relations,  which 
give  a  certain  superficial  sense  of  communion  of  heart  and  mind 
without  touching  its  (self's)  life  at  the  core,  that  we  need  not 
marvel  that  the  call  to  deny  self,  and  take  up  the  cross  of  Christ, 
is  resisted  so  long  as  only  the  sacrifice  required  is  realised,  and 
not  also  the  exceeding  gain  that  is  to  come  through  that  sacri- 
fice ;  and  of  this  gain  nothing  is,  I  think,  less  anticipated  than 
what  is  found  in  the  new  aspect  which  our  brother  men  will 
present  to  us,  and  the  sense  of  eternal  life  that  accompanies 
that  new  interest  of  love  which  they  will  have  to  us  in  the 
fellowship  of  Christ's  love  to  them,  and  which  will  take  the 
place  of  that  self-reference  with  which  they  were  formerly 
regarded ; — though  broken,  it  might  be,  by  occasional  outbursts 
of  kindly  and  generous  feeling — grapes,  as  it  were,  from  the 
land  of  promise  tasted  in  the  wilderness  but  yet  their  promise 
not  believed.  Would  that  these  outcomings  of  a  better  nature 
were  traced  up  to  their  ultimate  source  in  the  depths  of  our 
being,  and,  instead  of  the  passing  comfort  and  satisfaction 
which  in  their  present  form  is  all  they  usually  yield,  wTere 
employed  as  threads  to  lead  us  back,  through  the  labyrinth  of 
our  outward  life,  to  meet  and  know  Him  within  us—  the  Lord 
of  our  spirits — who  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to 
minister,  and  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many,  and  who  wrould 
teach  us  the  life  of  self-sacrifice,  with  all  its  peculiar  and  proper 
sorrows,  doubtless,  but  also  with  all  its  peculiar  and  proper  joys. 
Nay,  have  not  the  bitterest  sorrows  proper  to  that  life  a  root  of 
sweetness  in  them  which  renders  them  better,  more  to  be  chosen 
than  other  joys? 


320 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

CONCLUSION. 

TTAVING  in  this  attempt  to  illustrate  the  nature  of  the 
atonement  insisted  so  much  on  the  application  of  the 
words,  "  In  Him  was  life,  and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men,"  to 
the  whole  work  of  Christ  in  making  His  soul  an  offering  for 
sin,  I  am  anxious  not  to  be  misunderstood  as  to  the  aspect  of 
the  subject  of  the  atonement,  in  which  it  has  appeared  to  me 
reasonable  to  expect  it  to  be  light  to  us,  and  not  darkness ;  and 
that,  in  closing  this  volume,  the  reader  should  carry  away  with 
him  a  distinct  conception  of  the  limits,  which,  in  writing,  I  have 
realised,  and  kept  in  view. 

I  have  not  attempted  to  divest  the  subject  of  the  atonement 
of  all  mystery_.  I  have  not  cherished  the  hope,  or  in  truth  the 
desire  of  doing  so.  The  self-righteousness  that  takes  the  form 
of  a  submission  of  faith  to  mysteries,  I,  indeed,  feel  to  be 
altogether  a  delusion.  The  assumed  merit  of  a  blind  faith,  in 
addition  to  the  error  implied  in  all  idea  of  merit  on  our  part  in 
relation  to  God,  involves  the  absurdity  of  expecting  to  please 
God  by  exalting  one  of  His  good  gifts,  to  the  depreciation  of 
another  gift,  equally  to  be  traced  up  to  the  grace  of  the  Father 
of  lights.  Any  manner  of  subordinating  of  reason  to  revelation 
must  be  wrong,  in  which  it  is  forgotten  that  we  honour  God  in 
assigning  to  reason  its  due  place,  as  truly  as  we  do  in  assigning 
to  revelation  its  due  place  ;  for  to  be  jealous  for  reason  is  to  be 
jealous  for  God,  as  truly  as  to  be  jealous  for  revelation  is  to  be 


CONCLUSION 


321 


jealous  for  God.  If  self  comes  in,  and  forgets  that  reason  is  a 
gift  as  well  as  revelation,  and,  claiming  reason  as  its  own,  is 
puffed  up  on  behalf  of  that  which  we  have  thus  identified  with 
ourselves,  the  temptation  that  thus  arises  to  exalt  reason  and 
depreciate  revelation  is  obvious,  and  the  evil  consequences  to 
be  anticipated  great.  But  the  remedy,  the  true  and  the  only 
remedy,  is,  that  we  should  hear  the  voice  of  God  in  reason  as 
well  as  in  revelation — that  God  in  whose  presence  no  flesh 
shall  glory. 

But  as  to  mysteries,  reason  has  its  mysteries  as  well  as  revela- 
tion; and  to  shrink  from  mysteries,  is  to  shrink  from  all  deep 
thinking  on  any  of  the  high  problems  of  our  existence.  The 
practical  question  for  us,  as  God's  thinking,  intelligent  offspring, 
always  is  as  to  the  limit  of  light  and  darkness ;  which  practical 
question  we  are  to  entertain  under  the  sense  of  this  twofold 
responsibility ;  that,  as  it  would  be  wrong  to  attempt  to  push 
beyond  that  limit,  or  to  be  impatient  of  its  existence,  so  would 
it  be  also  wrong  to  fix  it  more  near  to  us  than  it  is  in  the  truth 
of  things,  or  at  least  in  relation  to  the  dispensations  of  light 
vouchsafed  to  us  by  God.  For  would  not  this  be  to  refuse  to 
use  a  portion  of  the  grace  of  God  to  us,  and  be  one  form  of 
folding  in  a  napkin  and  hiding  in  the  earth  a  talent  of  which  an 
account  must  be  rendered  ? 

Therefore,  under  the  sense  of  a  responsibility  of  which  the 
twofold  aspect  has  appeared  to  me  thus  unquestionable,  I  have 
now  considered  the  elements  of  the  work  of  Christ  as  what  His 
participation  in  humanity,  and  our  participation  in  the  divine 
nature  through  Him,  seemed  to  place  within  the  limit  of  the 
light  of  life  that  shines  for  us  in  Him ;  while  I  have  simply 
recognised,  abstaining  from  all  attempt  at  explanation  or  eluci- 
dation,  the  underlying  and  deepeFlacts  ofthe  relation  of  man 
to  God  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  implied  in  the 
relation  of  the  work  of  Christ  to  all  men,  and  in  the  spiritual 
reality  of  that  which  is  stated  when  it  is  said  that  "  this  is  the 


testimony  of  God,  that  God 
that  this  life  is  in  His  Son." 


has  given  to  us  eternal  life,  and 
As  to  these  deepest  facts  of  our 


322  CONCLUSION. 

being  and  of  our  relation  to  God,  I  have  not  even  attempted  to 
determine  thejine  that  separates  the  darkness  and  the  light 
now ;  or  at  all  to  say  what  its  eternal  and  necessary  place  is  : 
wKile  neither  am  I  to  be  understood  as  passing  any  judgment 
on  attempts  to  do  so,  or  on  the  going  of  others  nearer  to  that 
awful  line  than  I  have  done.  But  I  am  anxious  that  the  reader 
should  realise  how  much  on  the  light  side  of  that  line  I  have 
kept,  having  determined  to  approach  it  no  more  nearly  than  an 
attempt  to  illustrate  the  nature  of  the  atonement  required  me 
to  do. 

Reason  has  its  mysteries  as  well  as  revelation,  the  mysteries 
of  deepest  interest  to  us  being,  indeed,  common  to  them 
both;  though,  inasmuch  as  revelation  carries  us  further 
into  the  region  to  which  mystery  pertains,  the  sense  of 
mystery  in  occupation  of  mind  with  the  discoveries  of  reve- 
lation is  greater.  But  the  aspect  in  which  the  atonement 
has  now  been  contemplated  does  not  belong  to  the  proper 
region  of  mystery  at  all.  That  region,  whether  as  respects 
reason  or  revelation,  is  the  divine  and  the  infinite;  and  the 
atonement  has  now  been  considered  simply  as  a  transaction  in 
humanity,  contemplating  results  in  man,  to  be  accomplished  by 
the  revelation  of  the  elements  of  that  transaction  to  the  spirit 
of  man,  and  in  a  way  of  participation  in  these  elements  on  the 
part  of  man.  It  is  not  in  this  transaction,  viewed  in  itself,  that 
mystery  was  to  be  expected,  or  could  exist,  but  in  that  relation 
of  the  Son  of  God  to  man  which  this  transaction  presupposes. 
This  relation,  whether  we  contemplate  it  as  participation  in  our 
flesh,  or  as  that  relation  to  us  in  the  spirit  in  respect  of  which 
Christ  is  our  life,  having  power  over  all  flesh  to  this  end, 
is  indeed  a  mystery  as  to  its  ?iature  and  manner,  and  to  be 
known  by  us  only  in  its  results. 

And  this  is  true,  whether  we  contemplate  the  personal  work 
of  Christ  in  making  His  soul  an  offering  for  sin,  or  His  work  in 
us  in  respect  of  which  it  is  true,  that  when  we  live  to  God  we 
must  say,  "  Yet  not  we,  but  Christ  liveth  in  us."  The  divine 
perfection  of  sonship  in  humanity,  presented  in  Christ  to  our 


CONCLUSION.  323 

faith,  is,  in  respect  of  its  perfection,  what  leads  us  up  to  the 
mystery  of  the  divinity  of  Christ  as  truly  as  His  power  to 
quicken  and  sustain  sonship  in  spirit  and  in  truth  in  us  does. 
I  can  realise  neither  without  feeling  shut  up  to  the  faith  of  the 
divinity  of  the  Saviour ;  while  that  faith  so  accords  with  the  facts 
the  contemplation  of  which  thus  leads  directly  to  it,  that,  being 
received,  it  sheds  light  on  them.  For,  believing  in  the  divinity 
of  Christ,  we  see  how  the  atonement  has  that  commensurateness 
with  the  infinite  evil  of  sin,  and  infinite  excellence  of  righteous- 
ness, which  imparts  to  it  its  peace-giving  power ;  we  see  how 
Christ  is  near  to  us  in  that  nearness  that  accords  with  His  being 
our  life,  and  has  that  power  in  relation  to  us  which  justifies  the 
confidence  that  through  Christ  strengthening  us  we  can  do  all 
things. 

But  viewed  in  itself  this  faith  has  in  it  the  deepest  mystery ; 
but  it  is  mystery  in  the  region  in  which  we  are  prepared  for 
mystery,  being,  first,  in  the  manner  of  being  of  God,  and  then, 
where  the  line  of  meeting  is  between  God  and  man.  For  here, 
also,  we  are  prepared  for  mystery;  and  while  we  expect  to 
understand  what  pertains  to  the  human  side  of  this  line  and  to 
the  ^Ymoj^Xmoc^inJuiffmnity,  we  do  not  expect  to  under- 
stand what  is  on  the  divine  side,  and  pertains  to  the  acting  of 
God  as  God.  As  to  that  ultimate  mystery  which  our  faith 
receives  in  believing  in  God  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Spirit,  while  in  itself  eternal,  and  irrespective  of  all  finite  exist- 
ence, we  can  only  be  called  to  the  study  of  it  in  its  manifesta- 
tion in  connection  with  man.  But  even  in  this  manifestation 
there  remains  a  necessity  for  recognising  the  distinction  now 
made.  What  the  divine  sonship  is  in  its  spiritual  essence  and 
consciousness,  as  presented  to  our  faith  in  Christ,  and  as  that 
to  the  fellowship  of  which  we  are  ourselves  called  in  Him,  this 
the  very  nature  of  the  divine  purpose  in  relation  to  us  prepares 
us  to  expect  to  understand.  But  the  nature  of  the  relation  of 
the  Son  of  God  to  humanity,  whether  we  contemplate  His  own 
personal  work  in  making  His  soul  an  offering  for  sin,  making 
an  end  of  sin,  and  bringing  in  everlasting  righteousness,  or  His 


-z 


324  CONCLUSION. 

work  in  men  as  putting  forth  the  power  in  them  which  is  implied 
in  His  being  their  life; — this  belongs  to  the  acting  of  God  as 
God,  and  to  the  divinity  of  the  Son  of  God,  in  an  aspect  of 
the  subject  which  all  experience  in  thinking  of  our  relation  to 
God  prepares  us  to  find  ourselves  unable  to  understand. 

Nor  is  the  question  of  how  this  can  be,  or  what  the  manner 
of  the  divine  acting  is  which  it  implies,  the  only  mystery  here. 
The  faith  of  the  divinity  of  the  Saviour,  while  in  one  view  it 
affords  light  and  explanation  as  to  the  facts  which  constitute 
the  gospel,  in  truth  involves  and  deepens  all  the  moral  and 
spiritual  mysteries  of  our  existence. 

I  believe,  as  I  have  said,  that  the  faith  of  the  atonement,  and 
the  faith  that  we  have  eternal  life  in  Christ,  is  more  easy  to  us 
when  it  rests  on  the  faith  of  the  divinity  of  Christ.  Indeed, 
apart  from  that  previous  faith,  the  faith  of  what  the  gospel 
reveals  Christ  to  be  to  us  would  be  to  me  impossible.  I  cannot 
believe  in  one  as  my  life,  of  whom  I  am  not  warranted  to  think 
as  God;  while,  remembering  that  in  God  I  live,  and  move,  and 
have  my  being,  I  seem  prepared  to  be  told — I  had  almost 
said  to  understand — that  the  divine  life  of  sonship  is  what  I  am 
to  live  in  and  by  the  Son  of  God  as  my  life.  The  universal 
relation  of  men  to  the  one  Son  of  God,  as  He  in  whom  they  all 
have  the  life  of  sonship,  accords  as  perfectly  with  the  divinity 
of  the  Son  of  God,  as  it  contradicts  every  lower  conception  of 
His  being ;  and  the  Apostle,  who  preached  to  the  Athenians, 
in  relation  to  the  unknown  God,  whom  they  ignorantly 
worshipped,  that  "in  Him  they  lived,  and  moved,  and 
had  their  being,"  must  be  regarded  as  only  presenting  to 
our  faith  another  part  of  the  truth  of  man's  mysterious 
relation  to  God,  when  he  makes  known  the  mystery  hid 
from  ages  and  generations, — the  mystery  of  "  Christ  in  men 
the  hope  of  glory."  Nay,  how  closely  the  one  revelation 
is  related  to  the  other,  we  must  see,  if  we  connect  the  use 
which  the  Apostle  makes  of  the  recognition  of  man's  relation 
to  God  by  one  of  their  own  poets,  "  For  we  are  also  His  off- 
spring," with  our  relation  to  Christ  in  respect  to  that  life  of 


CONCLUSION.  325 

sonship  in  which  alone  men  can  call  God  Father  in  spirit  and 
in  truth.  Surely  the  parallelism  of  these  relationships  to  the 
Father  and  the  Son  is  a  help  to  our  faith  in  the  divinity  of  the 
Son,  as  it  also  explains  the  fact  that  this  mystery  of  the  divine 
existence  is  made  known  to  us.  But  still,  as  I  have  said,  this 
mystery,  apart  altogether  from  what  men  have  felt  of  its  intel- 
lectual difficulty,  deepens  the  previous  mysteries  of  reason  with 
which  all  thoughtful  minds  have  been  exercised  from  the 
beginning. 

Thus  the  great  mystery  of  combined  dependence  and  inde- 
pendence, as  presented  by  our  relation  to  God, — the  mystery 
implied  in  the  fact  that  in  God  we  live,  and  move,  and  have 
our  being,  and  yet  that  we  may  be  the  opposite  of  what  God 
wills  us  to  be, — this  is  not  removed,  but  only  deepened  by  all 
the  thoughts  of  our  relation  to  God  which  are  connected  with 
our  relation  to  the  Son  of  God. 

If  we  think  of  the  matter  in  the  way  of  considering  how  in 
the  nature  of  things  the  spiritual  constitution  of  humanity  can 
be  a  reality,  there  is  no  question  that  a  manner  of  nearness  to 
God  and  to  goodness,  is  suggested  by  the  statement  that  "God 
has  given  to  us  eternal  life  in  His  Son," — understood  as  imply- 
ing an  actual  relation  of  our  spirits  to  Christ  as  present  in  us, 
our  true  and  proper  life — which  it  is  still  more  difficult  to 
reconcile  in  our  thoughts  with  the  fact  of  sin  than  even  our 
"  living,  and  moving,  and  having  our  being  in  God  "  is. 

If,  again,  we  look  at  the  subject  in  relation  to  the  divine  will 
as  a  will  concerning  us,  the  choice  of  God  for  men,  in  propor- 
tion as  the  gospel  reveals  the  love  in  which  the  law  has  its  root, 
and  shews  the  demand  for  love  to  be  the  demand  of  love,  the 
difficulty  that  exists  in  the  fact  of  our  being  other  than  that  love 
desires  that  we  should  be  is  increased,  and  reaches  its  maximum 
of  difficulty  when  the  love,  which  is  seen  seeking  our  well-being, 
is  seen  as  the  fatherliness  that  is  in  God,  and  its  choice  for  us 
is  seen  as  participation  in  the  life  of  sonship,  and  the  provision 
for  the  realisation  of  that  choice  is  seen  in  the  gift  to  us  of  this 
eternal  life  in  the  Son.     Assuredly  the  mystery,  the  moral  and 

2  A 


326  CONCLUSION. 

spiritual  mystery,  is  here  increased  in  proportion  as  it  is  seen  to 
be  a  mystery  thus  involving  infinite  love.  But,  though  increased 
by  all  that  magnifies  God's  unspeakable  gift,  let  us  not  forget 
that  it  is  not  less  truly  the  mystery  of  reason  than  the  mystery 
of  revelation. 

Doubtless  it  is  with  a  sense  of  mystery,  often  altogether 
oppressive,  that  we  look  upon  human  sin  and  degradation,  and 
then  pass  upwards  to  the  Father  of  the  spirits  in  whom  the  sin 
and  degradation  present  themselves  and  meditate  on  the 
thoughts  of  that  Father  in  relation  to  them,  and  on  all  that  our 
faith  apprehends  of  what  He  has  done,  and  is  doing,  to  accom- 
plish in  them  the  good  pleasure  of  His  goodness.  But  though 
this  mystery  is  greatest  in  the  light  of  the  gospel,  it  is  great, 
very  great,  in  the  light  of  all  those  witnesses  for  His  goodness 
towards  men,  without  which  God  has  never  left  Himself;  and 
in  respect  to  which  the  charge  is  just,  that,  in  not  being  thank- 
ful, men  were  refusing  to  glorify  God  as  God. 

Some  would  cut  this  knot  by  saying  that  all  contradiction 
between  what  God  is,  and  what  God  wills,  is  but  apparent; 
that  nothing  is,  or  can  be,  other  than  what  God  wills  it  to  be ; 
and  that  facts  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  region,  even  those  that 
seem  most  contrary  to  the  mind  of  God,  are  really  related  to 
Him  just  as  physical  facts  are — hatred  and  love  as  much  as  cold 
and  heat.  Hati-ed  may  believe  this,  but  love  cannot.  Self  may 
believe  that  there  is  an  end  present  to  the  divine  mind  which  all 
moral  events  equally  and  necessarily  subserve,  and  with  refer- 
ence to  which  it  is  that  God  wills  them  to  be,  and  which  it  may 
call  the  divine  glory.  But  love  cannot  believe  that  the  divine 
glory  is  of  this  nature,  or  that  that  will,  in  respect  of  which  God 
is  love,  and  the  manifestation  of  which  must  be  His  glory,  can, 
in  respect  of  moral  beings,  be  fulfilled  but  in  their  loving. 

The  existence  of  a  contradiction  between  what  man  is,  and 
what  God  wills  him  to  be,  is  indeed  a  mystery.  The  faith  of 
the  fact,  however,  is  demanded  by  what  is  highest  and  deepest 
within  us,  which  forbids  our  grasping  at  a  seeming  intellectual 
consistency  of  thought,  at  the  expense  of  denying  this  contra- 


CONCLUSION.  327 

diction,  and  accepting  all  the  fearful  moral  and  spiritual  results 
which  such  denial  involves.  And  even  as  to  the  intellectual 
relief  sought,  in  denying  that  contradiction  between  man  and 
God,  which  all  ascription  of  goodness  to  God,  and  all  hope  of 
goodness  for  man  alike  imply,  (for  if  evil  be  not  contrary  to  the 
will  of  God,  what  hope  of  deliverance  from  it?)  this  seeming  in- 
tellectual relief  is  but  such  in  seeming;  for  it  is  but  the  removal 
of  the  contradiction,  from  where  conscience  recognises  its 
existence,  to  place  it  in  God  Himself,  by  representing  Him  as 
what  the  Apostle  so  solemnly  disclaims  His  being — a  fountain 
giving  forth  at  the  same  time  sweet  waters  and  bitter. 

Nor  can  we  be  otherwise  than  thankful  for  the  utter  failure  of 
all  attempts  made  in  this  direction  to  solve  this  great  moral  and 
spiritual  mystery;  for  its  weight  is  nothing  in  comparison  of 
what  would  be  laid  upon  us  by  taking  away  the  faith  that  God 
is  love  which  involves  that  mystery,  and  representing  the  great 
First  Cause  as  at  the  most  only  an  intelligent  fate.  Nay,  we  may 
surely  say,  that  what  of  mystery  and  relation  to  the  actual  facts 
of  human  existence,  as  it  presents  itself  to  us,  the  faith  of  love 
involves,  the  faith  of  love  will  itself  enable  us  to  submit  to  in 
the  patience  of  hope. 

But  if  the  love  of  God  to  man  presents  deep  mysteries,  and 
mysteries  that  deepen  to  our  apprehension  as  our  faith  that  God 
is  love  is  real,  having  also  more  claim  on  our  attention  in  pro- 
portion as  they  are  not  intellectual,  but  moral  and  spiritual; 
and,  more  especially,  if  that  spiritual  constitution  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  in  relation  to  man,  which  the  gospel  reveals,  be  the 
deepening  to  the  utmost  of  that  mystery  which  the  contradiction 
between  what  man  is  and  what  God  wills  him  to  be  presents, 
how  have  I  now  attempted  to  illustrate  the  nature  of  the  atone- 
ment, without  entering  upon  the  consideration,  either  of  this 
moral  and  spiritual  mystery,  or  of  the  intellectual  mysteries  to 
which  the  atonement  is  related?  Because  none  of  the  mysteries 
which  encompass  the  atonement  are  so  related  to  it  as  that  we 
must  first  solve  them  before  we  can  understand  it;  a  course  the 
opposite  of  this  is  rather  that  to  which  we  are  called;  and 


328  CONCLUSION. 

whether  we  would  ascend  upwards  to  questions  connected  with 
the  name  of  God  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  or 
meditate  on  the  present  or  future  of  man,  the  due  preparation 
for  these  regions  of  thought  is  the  exercise  of  faith  in  the  actual 
condition  of  things  which  the  gospel  reveals,  and  which,  in  the 
light  of  the  kingdom  of  God  within  us,  and  in  the  measure  in 
which  we  are  taught  of  God,  we  know  as  the  truth. 

I  have,  therefore,  felt  at  liberty  to  consider  the  nature  of  the 
atonement,  without  first  considering  the  mysteries  which 
encompass  it.  Nay,  what  I  have  just  said  implies  that  I  must 
have  begun  with  this  subject,  had  my  ultimate  purpose  been  to 
consider  these  mysteries ;  so  that  even  with  regard  to  those 
questions  in  relation  to  God  and  man,  which  take  us  most  to 
the  verge  of  light,  the  inquiry,  which  has  now  engaged  us  at- 
taches to  itself  all  the  interest  and  importance  which  may  be 
felt  to  belong  to  them. 

But  while  I  hope  for  good  only  from  all  holy  and  reverent 
meditation  on  any  of  the  deeper  subjects  of  thought  to  which 
I  have  now  referred,  my  immediate  purpose  has  not  been  to 
offer  help  towards  such  meditation,  though  I  should  be  thank- 
ful to  be  found  to  have  actually  done  so, — as  doubtless  much  of 
what  has  now  been  presented  to  the  reader's  consideration  has 
been  such  help  to  myself, — but  my  immediate  object  has  been 
the  urgent  practical  one  of  illustrating  that  spiritual  constitution 
of  things  in  which,  in  the  grace  of  God,  we  have  a  place,  and 
to  which  we  must  needs  be  conformed  if  we  would  partake  in 
i  the  great  salvation.  Such  conformity,  that  Amen  of  faith  to 
Uhe  atonement  which  I  have  sought  to  illustrate,  is  that  to 
which  our  Lord  calls  us  when  He  says, — "Seek  ye  first  the 
(kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness," — adding,  in  order 
that  we  may  be  altogether  free  to  give  heed  to  the  call,  the 
assurance  "and  all  other  things  will  be  added  unto  you."  All 
inquiry  as  to  what  is  truth  is  solemn,  and  the  sense  of  respon- 
sibility that  belongs  to  it,  weighty.  But  manifestly,  that  inquiry 
becomes  more  solemn,  and  that  responsibility  more  weighty,  in 
proportion  as  the  answer  to  the  question.  "What  am  I  to  think  ? 


CONCLUSION.  329 

— What  am  I  to  believe?"  becomes  one  with  the  answer  of  the 
question,—"  What  am  I  called  to  be  ?  "  And  this  is  the  solem- 
nity, this  the  importance  that  belongs  to  the  question  of  the 
nature  of  the  atonement. 

The  reader  who  has  accompanied  me  to  the  close  of  this 
volume,  in  the  fair  mind  and  with  the  patience  of  love,  has  I 
trust  felt  that  throughout  I  have  simply  sought  to  awaken  a 
response  in  his  own  inner  being, — whether  in  this  I  have 
succeeded  or  have  not, — and  that  I  have  written,  not  with  the 
interest  of  theological  controversy,  but  as  a  man  communing 
with  his  brother  man,  and  giving  utterance  to  the  deep  convic- 
tions of  his  own  heart  as  to  the  spiritual  need  of  humanity,  and 
the  common  salvation.  For  I  have  written  as  seeming  to 
myself  to  hear,  and  as  desiring  to  be  used  to  help  others  to 
hear  with  personal  and  practical  application,  the  Son  of  God 
saying  to  us,  "I  am  the  way,  and  the  truth,  and  the  life;  no  man 
cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  me,"  the  Father  saying  to  us, 
"  This  is*  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased;  hear  ye 
Him." 


330 


NOTES 


NOTE  TO  INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER. 

ON   THE  TENDENCY  TO    RESOLVE   RELIGION   INTO   LOVE  OF 

MAN   TO   MAN. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  teaching  of  a  religion  which  is  not  morality 
has  led  to  the  teaching  of  a  morality  which  is  not  religion.  What- 
ever causes  have  contributed  to  so  evil  a  result,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  our  time  is  characterised  by  an  ideal  of  the  bond  which  connects 
man  with  man  which  is  being  raised  higher,  combined  with  a  waning 
sense  of  the  bond  which  connects  man  with  God.  Men  seem  as  if 
they  were  awakening  to  the  due  feeling  of  the  beauty  and  of  the 
obligation  of  love  to  man  our  brother,  but  not  as  what  is  quickened 
by  the  faith  that  One  is  our  Father,  nor  as  a  natural  development 
of  love  to  Him. 

I  say  not  how  far  it  is  possible  to  understand  and  obey  the  voice 
that  bids  us  love  one  another,  while  that  voice  is  not  yet  recognised 
as  the  voice  of  God  who  is  love,  and  has  made  love— the  law  of  His 
own  being — the  law  of  our  being  also.  The  light  is  shining  in  dark- 
ness— darkness  which  yields  to  it  but  gradually  and  perhaps  we  may 
say  in  no  fixed  order  ;  so  that  some  points  it  may  illumine  while  others 
remain  invisible.  In  the  full  clear  light  of  life,  the  first  and  great 
commandment — love  to  God — is  seen  as  such;  and  the  second — love 
to  man — which  "  is  like  unto  it,"  is  seen  as  a  corollary  to  it,  a 
necessary  development  of  it.  In  that  light  also,  it  is  seen  that  all 
intelligent  peace  in  the  discernment  and  choice  of  goodness  implies 
the  faith  that  God  is,  and  that  He  is  good,  and  that  all  goodness  is 
of  Him.  Apart  from  this  faith  the  vision  of  goodness  would  indeed 
be  as  the  vision  of  a  light,  which,  for  all  we  knew,  might  at  any 
time  be  extinguished  in  eternal  darkness.     In  the  light  of  goodness 


NOTES.  331 

we  feel  its  supreme  excellence  because  of  what  it  is  in  itself,  and 
irrespective  of  all  considerations  exterior  to  itself:  so  that,  were 
existence  limited  to  a  moment,  we  should  prefer  goodness  as  the  life 
of  that  moment.  But  that  any  man  contemplating  goodness  while 
not  seeing  it  in  God  its  fountain  can  do  so  peacefully,  or  can  hope- 
fully choose  it  as  life  while  not  discerning  it  to  be  eternal  life,  must, 
I  believe,  imply  the  working  of  a  deep  spiritual  instinct  which  makes 
it  impossible  to  feel  goodness  to  be  but  a  passing  self-originated 
phase  of  a  perishing  mind. 

I  know  how  plausibly,  but  most  superficially,  men  have  spoken  of 
love  of  man  to  man  as  what  has  its  purity  and  disinterestedness 
marred  by  a  reference  to  the  will  of  God  in  cherishing  it.  Such  a 
reference  as  a  mere  sense  of  personal  dependence,  and  of  the  im- 
portance to  us  in  our  weakness  of  the  favour  of  the  Almighty,  may, 
viewed  in  itself,  be  thought  to  have  this  tendency,  and  doubtless, 
cherished  alone,  would  have  this  operation  ;  though  it  cannot  be 
otherwise  than  healthful  to  realise  our  dependence  on  God  simply 
as  dependence,  and  as  a  part  of  the  truth  of  things.  But  reference 
to  God's  aspect  towards  us,  when  God  is  known  as  love,  while  He  is 
felt  to  be  the  searcher  of  hearts  who  sees  us  just  as  we  are,  can  have 
no  other  operation  than  to  cherish  and  develop  that  life  of  love  in 
us  which  we  are  knowing  as  the  divine  life. 

But  however  great  the  value  of  the  first  and  great  commandment 
in  its  relation  to  the  second,  its  importance  in  itself — that  in  its  own 
nature  because  of  which  it  is  the  first  and  great  commandment — is 
its  highest  importance  to  us.  It  is  not  merely,  nor  chiefly,  because 
in  order  to  our  dwelling  together  as  brethren  it  is  necessary  that  we 
shall  know  God  as  our  Father,  that  the  knowledge  of  God  as  the 
Father  of  our  spirits  is  the  first  and  highest  knowledge  for  man. 
"  Behold  what  manner  of  love  the  Father  hath  bestowed  on  us  that 
we  should  be  called  the  sons  of  God."  Could  men  attain  to  a  perfect 
brotherhood  in  relation  to  each  other,  while  putting  from  them  their 
high  birthright  as  God's  offspring,  what  remained  to  them  of  the 
privilege  of  existence  would  be  small  indeed  in  comparison  with  that 
which  was  lost.  Low  conceptions  of  salvation,  which  have  been 
possible  only  when  man's  root  relation  to  God  as  the  Father  of 
spirits  was  left  out  of  account,  and  God  has  been  thought  of  only  as 
a  sovereign  Lord  and  righteous  Judge,  have  hindered  occupation  of 
men's  spirits  with  the  life  of  sonship  which  we  have  in  Christ,  as 
being  the  highest  aspect  of  our  existence.     But,  in  proportion  as 


332  NOTES. 

faith  in  the  incarnation  strengthens,  and  the  atonement  in  both  its 
retrospective  and  prospective  aspects  is  understood  as  the  develop- 
ment of  the  incarnation,  Christianity  will  be  more  and  more  seen 
as  a  life  of  sonship  in  the  fellowship  of  the  life  of  the  Son  of  God. 

This  will  be  to  return  to  what  Christianity  was  at  the  beginning  ; 
and  I  believe  the  words  which  the  Apostle  addresses  to  us  as  indi- 
vidual Christians  may  be  heard  as  addressed  by  our  Lord  to  the 
church,—"  Hold  the  beginning  of  your  confidence  stedfast  unto  the 
end."  Men  still  regard  as  a  part  of  the  ideal  contemplated  in  the 
early  Church,  and  in  measure  realised,  that  men  should  love  One 
another^  and  dwell  together  as  brethren  :  but  not  less  unmistakably, 
was  it  another  and  a  higher  part  of  that  ideal,  that  men  should  love 
God  and  follow  Him  as  dear  children.  Man's  relation  to  God  was 
as  truly  the  practical  interest  of  life  as  was  man's  relation  to  man ; 
Christ  as  the  Son  of  God  was  no  less  the  example  and  pattern  studied 
than  Christ  as  the  Brother  of  man. 

If  I  say  that  the  contrast  between  this  latter  aspect  of  Christianity, 
as  presented  to  us  in  the  early  Church,  and  the  ever-lessening  interest 
in  the  first  and  great  commandment,  and  the  merging  of  religion  in 
obedience  to  the  second,  indicates  a  putting  from  us  of  the  life  of 
sonship  towards  God,  that  is,  of  our  birthright  as  heirs  of  God  and 
joint  heirs  with  Jesus  Christ,  many  readers  knowing  that  they  are 
not  in  their  own  thoughts  Atheists  or  Pantheists,  or  in  any  form 
theoretically  losing  a  personal  God  in  the  reign  of  law  will  feel  as  if 
my  words  did  not  touch  them.  Still  less  will  they  be  felt  to  apply  to 
themselves  by  those  whose  occupation  with  the  duty  man  owes  to 
man  has  a  certain  habitual  reference  to  God  as  a  moral  Governor.  I 
am  not  to  be  regarded  as  making  no  distinction  among  these  classes 
of  men.  Nevertheless  my  conviction,  even  as  to  the  latter,  is  that 
Christianity  as  a  fellowship  in  the  sonship  of  the  Son  of  God  has 
still  to  be  revealed  in  them.  Yet  what  I  thus  place  in  contrast  with 
primitive  Christianity  is,  I  fear,  the  conscious  position  of  some,  and 
is  regarded  by  them  as  differing  from  that  taken  by  the  first  Christians 
only  in  being  higher  ;  the  transference  of  the  relationship  of  father 
and  child  to  our  relationship  to  God  being  looked  on  by  them  as 
only  an  anthropomorphic  form  of  the  religious  instinct,  to  rise  above 
which  belongs  to  philosophy.  But  very  few  comparatively,  recog- 
nising Christianity  as  a  gift  of  God  and  the  highest  hitherto  known, 
will  thus  regard  philosophy,  in  this  development  of  it,  as  a  higher 
gift  still— the  latest  and  the  best.    Those  few  can  speak  of  Christian- 


NOTES.  333 

ity  passing  into  a  philosophy,  but  the  multitude  of  those  who  believe 
in  Christianity  as  of  God,  if  they  recognise  at  all  the  fact  of  the 
present  absorption  of  pratical  religion  in  obedience  to  the  second 
commandment,  will  see  in  it,  not  progress,  but  a  fearful  departure 
from  the  first  principles  of  Christ.  Our  highest  relation,  that  in 
which  we  stand  to  the  Father  of  our  spirits,  can  no  more  pass  away 
in  a  philosophy,  and  from  a  life  of  love  become  a  form  of  thought 
<ha.n  any  other  relation  of  which  love  is  the  essence. 


NOTE  TO  CHAPTER  II. 

LUTHER'S  TEACHING  OF  JUSTIFICATION  BY  FAITH  ALONE. 

I  believe  that  I  have  truly  expressed  Luther's  personal  faith  and 
consciousness  in  his  contending  for  Justification  by  Faith  ;  that 
which  also  was  the  secret  of  his  power  and  the  value  of  his  work. 

Faith  is  the  right  attitude  of  the  human  spirit  towards  God — the 
due  response  to  His  revelation  of  Himself  to  us,  in  rendering  which 
our  hearts  are  right  towards  God.  "  Justification  by  faith  alone " 
means  that  in  pronouncing  us  just  God  regards  only  and  exclusively 
the  attitude  of  our  spirits  towards  Himself.  What  elements  will  be 
present  in  the  response  of  faith  must  depend  on  the  elements 
present  in  the  revelation  of  God  to  which  it  is  a  response.  As  a 
preacher  of  Christ,  Luther  insists  on  a  response  to  the  revelation  of 
God,  in  Jesus  Christ.  Of  that  revelation  he  conceives  as  necessarily 
inspiring  confidence  and  love,  entire  reconciledness  to  God.  These 
he  expects  to  abound  in  the  spirit  of  him  that  believes,  in  proportion 
to  the  simplicity  and  exclusiveness  of  the  occupation  of  his  spirit 
with  that  which  his  faith  is  apprehending.  Therefore,  he  permits 
no  division  of  trust.  Such  division  is  to  him  a  hindrance  to  the  soul's 
life  in  God's  favour.  Hence  it  is  that  we  see  him  placing  together 
in  one  category  things  so  different  as  penances  and  good  works  ; 
whereby  he  has  exposed  himself  to  much  reproach  ;  many,  while 
rejecting  the  former  as  pertaining  to  superstition,  being  jealous 
for  the  latter  as  belonging  to  morality,  and  what  to  undervalue  is 
Antinomianism. 

But,  if  we  would  do  justice  to  the  great  Reformer,  we  must  read 
his  pleadings  for  faith  as  we  read  St.  Paul's  commendation  of  charity. 
The  place  which  the  Apostle  claims  for  charity,  or  love,  accords 


334  NOTES. 

exactly  with  the  place  which  Luther  claims  for  that  faith  which 
worketh  by  love.  Good  works  are  related  to  charity  as  its  proper 
outward  form.  They  are  related  to  faith  as  its  proper  outward  fruit. 
Being  really  good  they  mar  not  the  purity  of  the  love  which  they 
express,  while  they  are  an  outgoing  of  its  life,  which  tends  to  the 
developing  and  strengthening  of  that  life.  Being  really  good  they 
mar  not  the  simplicity  of  the  faith  of  which  they  are  the  fruit ;  rather, 
as  an  experience  of  the  Divine  Power  of  faith,  they  strengthen  faith, 
deepening,  as  by  a  special  additional  evidence,  the  confidence  with 
which  it  is  held.  "  He  that  believeth  on  the  Son  of  God  hath  the 
witness  in  himself,"  viz.,  a  witness,  "that  God  hath  given  to  us 
eternal  life,"  in  addition  to  the  witness  of  God  which  is  presupposed, 
and  which  faith  accepts.  But  good  works  of  which  the  praise  is 
not  thus  given  to  God,  and  which  are  contemplated,  not  as  adding 
to  our  obligations  to  God,  but  as  bringing  Him  under  obligations 
to  us,  only  hinder  faith  as  they  must  also  hinder  charity.  To  this 
light  it  is  that  we  must  take  Luther's  teaching  if  we  would  understand 
his  including  good  works  with  penances  in  his  denunciations.  Even 
the  more  refined  teaching  "  that  faith  to  be  accepted  must  be  per- 
fected by  charity,"  he  saw  to  be  still  a  marring  of  the  simplicity  of 
faith — a  distraction  of  the  regard  of  the  spirit  from  the  object  of  faith. 
The  faith  whose  power  to  inspire  confidence  towards  God  is  sus- 
pended, waiting  for  the  consciousness  of  a  supplement  of  feeling,  is 
not  that  faith  of  love  which  quickens  love.  Of  this  Luther  had  the 
clearest  discernment  in  the  light  not  of  a  severe  logic,  though  it  is 
consonant  with  the  severest  logic,  but  of  a  deep  personal  experience 
— the  experience  first,  of  the  mental  agony  he  endured  while  engaged 
in  the  anxious  attempt  to  perfect  faith  in  the  use  of  all  the  discipline 
prescribed  for  that  end  ;  and  then,  of  the  happy  emancipation  of  his 
spirit  as  soon  as  he  had  fixed  his  exclusive  regards  on  the  Cross  of 
Christ  :  an  experience  identical  with  that  which  Bunyan  gives  as 
that  of  his  pilgrim  when  he  came  in  sight  of  the  Cross  and  the 
burden  which  he  bore  fell  of  itself  from  his  back. 

The  divine  acceptance  of  faith  has  as  its  counterpart  in  him  that 
believes  peace  with  God  and  joy  in  God,  a  peace  and  joy  propor- 
tioned to  the  simplicity  and  strength  of  the  faith  from  which  they 
spring.  This  aspect  of  Luther's  teaching  we  must  realise  if  we 
would  understand  its  power.  God  as  revealed  in  Christ  asks  our  un- 
divided trust.  But  may  this  be  an  assured  personal  trust  ?  Luther's 
reply  was  Yes — a  trust,  the  personal  assurance  and  peace,  and  joy, 


NOTES.  335 

of  which  has  no  limit  in  its  objects,  but  only  in  the  clearness  and 
stedfastness  of  the  faith  with  which  that  object  is  regarded.  Hence 
the  attraction  of  his  preaching.  It  drew  men  by  the  promise  of 
perfect  peace  with  God — a  true  and  holy  peace  in  harmony  with 
the  character  of  God.  For,  however  much  Luther's  seeming  depre- 
ciation of  good  works  has  been  urged  against  him,  I  have  no  doubt 
that  in  reality  his  great  power  was  that,  like  St.  Paul  whose  disciple 
he  specially  claimed  to  be,  he  commended  himself  to  every  man's 
conscience  in  the  sight  of  God.  The  testimony  of  conscience  was 
on  his  side  in  showing  how  empty  of  any  real  righteousness  were 
men's  endeavours  by  mortification  and  penances  to  commend  them- 
selves to  God.  The  testimony  of  conscience  was  also  on  his  side  in 
setting  forth  the  true  righteousness  that  is  in  faith,  because  faith 
gives  His  true  glory  to  God. 

The  conception  of  faith  working  by  love  is  exceedingly  simple — 
love  believed  operating  in  him  who  believes  effects  according  to  its 
own  nature  ;  the  measure  of  the  result  of  good  being  the  strength 
and  steadfastness  and  purity  of  the  faith.  Self-consciousness  is 
necessarily  present  and  is  an  element  in  our  understanding  of  the 
love  revealed.  It  is  love  to  us  taking  its  form  from  what  we  are. 
"  God  commendeth  His  love  towards  us,  in  that,  while  we  were  yet 
sinners,  Christ  died  for  us."  But  our  self-consciousness  is  simply 
that  of  recipients  of  love,  helped  to  understand  love  by  what  they 
feel  themselves  to  be,  while  all  our  feelings  towards  God  are  unmix- 
edly  what  His  love  quickens.  Any  element  of  confidence  or  hope 
originating  otherwise,  originating  in  anything  individual,  anything 
because  of  which  a  man  separates  himself  from  others  is  a  foreign 
admixture,  hindering  the  purity  of  faith,  and  so  weakening  its  power 
for  good. 

Here  let  us  realise  that  the  exclusiveness  of  the  mind's  regard  as 
fixed  on  God's  revelation  of  Himself  in  Christ  being  preserved,  no 
measure  of  personal  confidence  towards  God  can  be  too  great,  and 
all  jealousy  of  such  confidence,  as  if  it  were  inconsistent  with  humi- 
lity is  only  possible  when  that  which  is  so  judged  is  not  understood. 
We  cannot  be  too  jealous  of  foreign  elements  mingling  with  the 
confidence  of  faith,  but  this,  and  this  alone,  is  here  a  legitimate 
jealousy.  As,  in  the  light  of  God  in  Christ,  we  cannot  be  uncertain 
whether  it  is  the  light  of  truth  :  so  also,  when  we  are  yielding  to 
that  light  the  obedience  of  faith,  we  cannot  be  uncertain  as  to 
whether  that  is  Eternal  Life  which  that  faith  is  quickening  in  us. 


336  NOTES. 

And  just  as,  being  in  the  light  of  the  Truth,  we  refuse  the  demand 
made  in  the  name  of  the  church  that  we  should  suspend  our  confi- 
dence that  it  is  the  truth,  until  the  church  has  sealed  it  with  her 
authority ;  so,  in  experiencing  the  power  of  the  Truth  to  inspire 
confidence  towards  God,  we  refuse  the  corresponding  demand  that 
we  should  suspend  our  confidence  in  God's  acceptance  of  us,  until 
we  have  availed  ourselves  of  the  church's  help  and  guidance  for 
the  perfecting  of  faith.  "Where  is  there  room  for  the  grace  of 
humility?"  is  the  question  urged,  when  our  obedience  to  divine 
light  is  regarded  as  presumptuous  confidence  in  our  own  judgment. 
This  question  is  repeated,  when  our  joy  in  that  personal  assurance  of 
God's  acceptance  which  accompanies  the  response  of  faith  to  the 
divine  love  is  assumed  to  be  an  unwarranted  self-complacency  in  our 
own  conscious  state  before  God.  But,  as  it  is  true  humility  to 
believe,  so  is  it  true  humility  to  rejoice  in  that  which  we  believe. 
"  My  soul  shall  make  her  boast  in  the  Lord  :  the  humble  shall  hear 
thereof,  and  be  glad." 

I  have  said  that,  if  we  would  do  justice  to  the  great  Reformer,  we 
must  look  at  his  commendation  of  faith  as  we  do  at  St.  Paul's  com- 
mendation of  charity.  Commendations  of  faith  have  not  that  ready 
response  which  commendations  of  charity,  at  least  of  charity  as  love 
of  man  to  man,  seem  to  command.  I  believe  that  this  is  so  because 
we  are  more  alive  to  what  is  wanting  in  the  feelings  of  man  to  man, 
than  to  what  is  wanting  in  the  feelings  of  man  to  God.  It  is  not 
indeed  in  the  pure  light  of  the  love  due  from  man  to  man  that  men 
are  speaking,  when  they  are  able  so  readily  and  almost  self- 
complacently  to  praise  charity;  for  in  the  light  of  love  the  sense  of 
short-coming  and  self-condemnation  would  be  their  prevailing  feel- 
ing, yet  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  obligation  of  love  to  man  is  more 
generally  felt  than  the  obligation  to  faith  in  God,  or  love  to  God 
either.  But  what  I  feel  is  that,  as  in  the  light  of  love,  i.e.  of  love  as 
love  to  God  and  love  to  man,  we  assuredly  feel  that  St.  Paul's  teaching 
in  chapter  xiii.  of  his  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  is  so  full  of  self- 
evidencing  light  that  we  regard  it  as  giving  him  a  claim  on  our  faith 
as  far  above  that  of  the  miracles  which  he  wrought  as  he  himself 
places  charity  above  miracles,  so  also  the  true  teaching  of  faith  has 
upon  it  as  unmistakeable  a  divine  mark  as  the  true  teaching  of  love. 
The  attitude  of  the  spirit  towards  God  in  faith  is  so  truly  its  right 
and  most  excellent  attitude — the  highest,  purest,  and  most  perfect 
consciousness  of  being  in  one  possessing  a  derived  being — that  the 


NOTES. 


337 


demand  for  it  is  felt  to  be  made  in  pure  light,  and  he  who  makes  it 
is  felt  to  be  holding  forth  the  word  of  life.  u  God  raised  Christ  from 
the  dead  and  gave  Him  glory  that  our  faith  and  hope  might  be 
in  God  ;"  and  though  charity  be  greater  than  faith  or  hope,  being 
fellowship  in  what  God  is,  for  God  is  love,  yet  are  faith  and  hope 
precious  in  themselves,  as  well  as  in  their  relation  to  the  charity 
which  they  feed  (and  which  doubtless  feeds  and  strengthens  them  in 
return),  and  we  can  no  more  doubt  that  we  are  hearing  the  very 
truth  of  God  when  we  are  being  taught  faith  in  God  and  hope 
towards  God,  than  when  we  are  taught  love  to  God. 

I,  therefore,  feel  Luther's  teaching  of  faith  to  commend  Luther  as 
a  true  witness  for  God,  as  Saint  Paul's  teaching  of  charity  is  felt  to 
commend  him  :  which  is  indeed,  to  claim  for  St.  Paul,  whose  disci- 
ple Luther  was,  the  same  acceptance  on  account  of  his  teaching  of 
faith  which  we  accord  to  him  on  account  of  his  teaching  of  charity. 

In  considering  the  present  reaction  against  the  Reformation  and 
movement  towards  Romanism,  no  conviction  is  more  strongly  im- 
pressed on  my  mind  than  that,  if  we  would  deal  with  it  hopefully,  we 
must  revert  to  the  Reformation  controversy  in  its  pure  essence — I 
mean,  the  teaching  of  Justification  by  Faith  truiy  understood.  And 
we  shall  revert  to  it  with  the  greater  advantage  if  we  have  advanced 
in  the  true  understanding  of  the  faith  to  which  the  Gospel  calls  us. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  forensic  character  of  the  systematic 
theology  of  the  Reformers  is  to  be  traced  to  inadequacy  in  their 
conception  of  the  grace  which  the  Gospel  reveals  ;  to  their  not 
understanding  that  the  Son  reveals  the  Father  in  order  that  the  faith 
of  the  revelation  may  quicken  in  us  the 
of  Christ  is  subjectively  the  fellows! 


the  footprints  of  Christ  in  which  we  are  to  tread  are  the  footprints 
of  His  faith  Land  that  it  is  thus  that  we  are  to  understand  the  ex- 
ample  which  He  has  set  before  us  that  we  should  walk  in  His  steps. 
But  here  the  words  suggest  themselves,  "  First  cast  out  the  beam 
out  of  thine  own  eye  ;  and  then  shalt  thou  see  clearly  to  cast  out  the 
mote  out  of  thy  brother's  eye."  If  the  church  before  the  Reforma- 
tion marred  the  doctrine  of  Justification  by  Faith  by  that  teaching 
which  contemplated  the  perfecting  of  faith  by  charity — practically 
sealing  the  fountain  of  love  by  demanding  the  consciousness  of  love 
as  a  prerequisite  to  opening  it ;  the  Protestant  portion  of  the  church 
since  the  Reformation  has  not  less  certainly  hindered  the  true  life 
and  power  of  faith  by  demanding  charity  and  other  Christian  graces 


x 


the  life  of  sonship  ;  that  the  faith       ;     • 
mip  of  Christ's  own  faith  ;  that       l 


338  NOTES. 

as  fruits  of  faith,  the  consciousness  of  which  is  made  a  prerequisite 
to  the  free  breathing  of  the  assured  life  of  faith  in  its  personal  confi- 
/  dence  towards  God.  The  Schoolmen  could  not  trust  faith  to  produce 
/  charity  :  the  Divines  of  the  Reformation  schools  can  trust  it  as  little, 
though  the  form  of  system  in  which  they  have  severally  manifested 
their  distrust  be  different. 

Distrust  in  the  power  of  faith  to  produce  love  is  distrust  in  the 
power  of  God's  revelation  of  Himself  in  Christ  to  renew  us  after  His 
own  image — distrust,  therefore,  in  the  spiritual  process  of  which  the 
Apostle  speaks  :  "  But  we  all,  with  open  face,  beholding  as  in  a  glass 
the  glory  of  the  Lord,  are  changed  into  the  same  image  from  glory 
to  glory,  even  as  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord."  Such  distrust,  however 
impossible  to  us  while  in  the  exercise  of  living  faith,  is  nevertheless 
•  *  what  we  are  constantly  tempted  to  when  objects  of  faith  become 
/  (  forms  of  dogmatic  thought,  and  when,  further,  the  holding  of  dog- 
matic  "truth  takes  the  shape  of  a  religious  duty,  and  steclfastness  in 
so  holding  it  and  zeal  in  contending  for  it  come  to  be  to  us  as  our 
great  debt  to  the  truth.  Nothing  is  more  marvellous  than  the 
practical  powerlessness  of  truth  so  held,  and  I  have  often  felt  how 
one  tear  of  Jesus  traced  by  faith  up  to  its  fountain  in  the  heart  of 
God  would  have  a  power  to  inspire  confidence  towards  God  which 
the  mere  reception  of  the  fullest  doctrinal  conceptions  of  His  atoning 
sacrifice  for  sin  has  not. 

The  present  wide  spread  awakedness  of  mind  on  the  subject  of 
religion  may  ultimately  result  in  men's  reverting  to  the  simplicity  of 
faith  ;  but  this  is  not  its  immediate  operation.  The  first  effect  of  an 
increased  sense  of  the  importance  of  our  relation  to  God  is  usually 
practical.  That  we  are  not  enjoying  peace  with  God, — are  not 
having  as  sure  hold  of  His  favour,  suggests  a  doubt  not  as  to  our 
knowledge  of  God  but  as  to  the  use  we  are  making  of  that  know- 
ledge. We  assume  that  we  have  faith,  and  we  go  on  to  add  to  it 
whatever  we  are  taught  is  needed  for  the  completeness  of  our 
character  as  Christians.  The  practical  work  thus  engaged  in  can  in 
no  measure  supply  what  is  all  the  while  really  lacking  in  our  faith. 
The  best  result  that  can  arise  from  our  activity  will  be  the  experience 
of  disappointment,  the  finding  that  all  our  doings  are  not  bringing 
us  nearer  to  that  peace  with  God  the  desire  for  which  first  moved 
us.  How  should  they  ?  Not  what  God  is  to  us  or  feels  to  us  has 
been  occupying  our  mind,  but  what  we  are  presenting  to  Him — our 
measure  of  response  to  the  demands  which  we  understand  Him  to  be 


NOTES.  339 

making  on  us.  If  disappointment  have  the  result  of  sending  us  back 
to  reconsider  what  we  call  our  faith,  to  look  stedfastly  at  the  great 
facts  which  the  Gospel  professes  to  reveal  to  us,  and  to  examine 
ourselves  as  to  our  realisation  of  them,  and  of  the  light  they  shed  on 
our  relation  to  God,  on  His  mind  towards  us  and  on  the  response  to 
that  mind  due  from  us — if  we  thus  come  under  the  power  of  the 
love  of  God,  we  enter  into  the  peace  and  joy  of  believing,  and  reach 
at  once  that  rest  in  God,  the  pursuit  of  which  by  exertions  of  our 
own  has  been  so  vain  ;  while  at  the  same  time  we  receive  light  and 
strength  for  a  true  devotedness  to  God  and  to  goodness  in  the  fellow- 
ship of  the  life  of  Christ.  This  or  some  measure  of  this  result  will 
be  our  true  gain.  Some  measure,  I  say,  for  it  is  not  always  the  case 
that  the  full  and  clear  understanding  of  what  has  been  wanting  in 
our  faith  is  the  result  of  the  honest  endeavour  to  add  to  our  assumed 
faith  good  works.  Our  awakening  to  the  sense  of  our  actual  igno- 
rance of  the  mind  of  God  towards  us,  and  the  dawning  light  of  what 
that  mind  is,  may  be  very  partial  and  at  broken  intervals  and  pure 
trust  in  God  and  deliverance  from  self-righteousness  may  be  but  very 
gradually  developing  in  us  ;  but  the  measure  of  our  gain  will  clearly 
be,  not  the  measure  in  which  we  have  accumulated  acts  of  outward 
goodness,  but  the  measure  in  which  we  have  been  attaining  to  a 
pure  and  childlike  trust  in  the  Father  of  our  spirits. 

But  other  results  of  the  disappointment  experienced  in  our  blind 
attempts  at  building  a  superstructure  of  religion  without  a  foundation 
of  living  faith  may  ensue  ;  and  we  are  not  to  be  surprised  if  among 
these  we  meet  on  the  one  hand  conversions  from  Protestantism  to 
Romanism  or  on  the  other  departures  to  infidelity.  The  question 
What  is  religion  doing  for  you  ?  when  the  answer  is  not  one  that  can 
satisfy,  may  either  turn  us  for  hope  to  all  the  appliances  by  which 
the  older  church  has  supplemented  its  dogmatism,  promising,  from 
submission  to  its  guidance  the  comfort  and  peace  which  all  it  has 
taught  concerning  Christ  has  not  imparted  ;  or  it  may  lead  us  to 
question  the  truth  of  the  creeds  which,  held  so  long  without  ques- 
tioning, have  done  so  little  for  our  spirits. 

And  here  I  feel  the  importance  of  the  original  protest  of  the  first 
Reformers  against  the  "  general  and  doubtsome  faith "  of  the 
Church  of  Rome.  I  have  said  that  the  Divines  of  the  Reformation 
have  not  proved  more  able  than  the  Schoolmen  to  trust  the  native 
power  of  faith, — that  devices  have  been  had  recourse  to  to  secure 
that  faith  shall  be  of  the  right  kind,  which  in  effect  hinder  the 


l| 


340  NOTES. 

simple  exercise  of  faith  as  much  as  the  Schoolmen's  demand  for  a 
faith  perfected  by  charity ;  while  practically  the  general  and  doubt- 
some  faith  protested  against  prevails  in  Protestant  as  well  as  in 
Roman  Catholic  countries.  Yet  that  protest  is  an  important  gain, 
and  the  system  in  which  it  has  been  a  starting  point  has  an  im- 
measurable superiority  over  that  which  made  a  "general  and 
doubtsome  faith  "  not  only  permissible,  but  alone  logically  possible. 
I  refer  to  the  doctrine  that  the  atonement  had  special  reference  to 
original  sin,  while  satisfaction  for  personal  sin  remained  to  be  made 
in  the  form  of  penance-  -personal  sin  calling  for  personal  satisfaction 
in  some  form  or  other  ;  for  this  doctrine  precluded  the  possibility  of 
peace  with  God  as  an  immediate  result  of  faith.  Original  sin  usually 
is  present  to  men's  minds,  if  thought  of  at  all,  as  a  dogma,  not  as  a 
consciousness.  It  is  to  actual  personal  sin  that  the  rebukes  of  con- 
science and  the  feeling  of  the  need  of  forgiveness  refer.  This 
remains  true  even  when  actual  sin  most  reveals  to  the  sinner  the 
corruption  which  it  indicates.  And,  therefore,  all  the  interest  of  the 
desire  for  pardon  and  for  peace  with  God  is  by  this  system  diverted 
from  Christ  and  the  forgiveness  preached  through  Him  to  the  forms 
of  personal  satisfaction  for  personal  sins  which  the  church  prescribes. 
That  penances,  or  any  other  means  of  peacemaking  prescribed,  are 
represented  as  accepted  for  Christ's  sake,  and  so  have  their  virtue 
connected  with  the  merits  of  His  great  sacrifice  for  sin,  does  not  alter 
the  case.  Whatever  has  been  done  for  him,  the  anxious  awakened 
sinner's  interest  is  absorbed  in  what  remains  to  be  done  dyhim. ;  and, 
as  the  strength  of  a  chain  is  measured  not  by  its  strongest  but  by  its 
weakest  link,  so  here  does  the  measure  of  actual  peace  turn,  not  on 
the  faith  of  which  Christ  is  the  object,  but  on  the  personal  satisfac- 
tion rendered,  whatever  its  form. 

I  use  the  word  "  logically  :>  because  I  wish  to  be  understood  as 
speaking  of  the  system,  and  not  as  questioning  the  reality  of  pure 
faith  in  God  and  joy  in  Christ  attained  to  by  so  many,  the  form  of 
whose  religion  has  been  determined  by  that  system,  but  the  essence 
of  whose  religion  has  in  truth  contradicted  it.  An  early  member  of 
the  Society  of  Friends,  writing  to  a  brother  who  was  a  Roman 
Catholic  says,  "  Your  religion  and  my  religion  must  be  the  same  in 
so  far  as  we  have  religion,  for  there  is  but  one  religion."  This  true 
and  deep  word  we  are  gradually  learning  to  understand. 


NOTES.  341 

NOTE  TO  CHAPTER  VI. 
"mediatorial  religion" — National  Review  for  April,  1856. 

Those  of  my  readers  who  are  acquainted  with  this  able  review  of 
the  first  edition  of  this  book  will  expect  some  notice  of  it  in  a  new 
edition. 

The  reviewer  quotes  (p.  495)  my  words  (p.  118  of  this  edition). 
"  All  the  elements  of  a  perfect  repentance  in  humanity  for  all  the 
sin  of  man  -a  perfect  sorrow — a  perfect  contrition — all  the  elements 
of  such  a  repentance  and  that  in  absolute  perfection — all — excepting 
the  personal  consciousness  opsin."  He  proceeds  to  add,  "  This  ex- 
ception however  contains  just  the  essential  element  of  the  whole." 
That  which  is  thus  excepted  is  indeed  an  element  necessarily  present 
in  a  personal  repentance  for  conscious  guilt ;  and  had  I  represented 
what  Christ  felt  and  confessed  to  the  Father  as  a  substitute  for 
repentance  in  us,  offered  to  the  Father  to  save  us  from  the  necessity 
of  repenting,  as  Christ  has  been  represented  as  bearing  the 
punishment  of  our  sins  as  a  substitute  to  save  us  from  punishment, 
the  reviewer's  question  "Is  vicarious  contrition  at  all  more  conceiv- 
able than  vicarious  retribution  ?  "  would  have  been  apposite,  and  a 
fatal  objection  to  my  whole  conception  of  the  atonement.  But  this 
is  not  my  teaching ;  and  all  that  I  have  represented  as  the  atone- 
ment remains  untouched  by  his  question. 

I  will  not  repeat  what  I  have  stated  so  fully  in  the  text  as  the 
elements  of  the  atonement.  Is  what  I  have  ascribed  to  Christ  truly 
and  justly  so  ascribed  ?  And,  if  so,  is  what  is  thus  truly  and  justly 
ascribed  to  Christ  to  be  regarded  as  an  atonement  for  the  sin  of  man  ? 
Both  questions  may  be  answered  affirmatively,  or  the  former  question 
may  be  answered  in  the  affirmative  and  the  latter  in  the  negative,  or 
both  may  be  answered  negatively,  according  as  I  have  commended  ' 
my  own  faith  to  my  readers  entirely,  or  partially,  or  not  at  all.  But 
the  objection  of  the  reviewer  is  rather  to  my  use,  though  guarded,  of 
the  word  repentance,  than  to  the  view  I  have  taken  of  the  nature  of 
the  atonement.  That  word  will  have  its  full  meaning  in  the  personal 
experience  of  every  one  who  accepts  in  faith  the  atonement  (as  now 
represented) ;  for  every  such  individual  sinner  will  add  the  "excepted" 
element  of  "personal  consciousness  opsin."  But,  if  the  consciousness 
of  such  repentant  sinner  be  analysed,  it  will  be  found  that  all  that  is 
morally  true  and  spiritual  and  acceptable  to  God  in  his  repentance 

2  B 


342  NOTES. 

is  an  amen  to  Christ's  condemnation  of  his  sin,  and  that  all  the  hope 
towards  God,  because  of  which  his  repentance  is  free  and  pure  and 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  sonship,  is  equally  traceable  to  the  revela- 
tion of  the  heart  of  the  Father  in  his  acceptance  of  the  Son's  confes- 
sion and  intercession  on  man's  behalf. 

In  his  next  paragraph  the  reviewer  goes  on  to  say, — "  Further  : 
it  seems  a  paradox  to  say  with  our  author,  that  true  repentance  is 
impossible  to  man,  who  alone  needs  it  :  and  can  be  realised  only  by 
the  Son  of  God,  in  whom  there  is  no  room  for  it.  It  would  indeed 
be  a  hopeless  realm  to  live  in,  which  should  annex  to  all  sins  both 
an  imperative  demand  and  an  absolute  disqualification  for  adequate 
contrition,  and  first  open  the  fountain  of  availing  tears  in  holy  natures 
that  have  none  to  shed."  I  have  said  that  a  true  and  adequate 
realisation  of  sin  and  confession  of  its  evil  in  perfect  response  to  the 
divine  mind  and  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  moral  truth  of  things 
has  existed  in  humanity  only  in  the  divine  mind  itself,  as  the  mind 
of  the  Son  in  humanity.  I  have  not  said  that  repentance,  including 
the  personal  element  which  I  have  excepted,  has  been  present  in  the 
mind  of  the  sinless  one  or  was  possible  to  him.  As  to  the  other 
part  of  the  paradox  ascribed  to  me,  I  have  not  spoken  of  repentance 
as  impossible  to  the  sinner  absolutely,  but  only_  apart  from  Christ. 
To  man  as  related  to  Christ  repentance  is  possible,  just  as  holiness, 
and  righteousness,  and  love  are  possible.  "  I  am  the  way  and  the 
truth  and  the  life  :  no  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  me." 
Surely  in  this  living  way  repentance  is  a  step — the  first.  The  spirit 
of  the  Son  is  in  the  purpose  "  I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  Father." 
To  conceive  it  a  hardship  that  repentance  should  only  thus  be 
possible  is  to  conceive  it  a  hardship  to  exist  in  a  world  in  which  it 
can  be  said,  "  There  is  none  good  but  one,  that  is,  God  " — a  hard- 
ship to  exist  where  fellowship  in  the  divine  mind  implies  participa- 
tion in  the  divine  nature. 

As  my  use  of  the  word  repentance,  however  guarded,  has  come 
to  suggest  a  seeming  objection  to  my  conception  of  the  atonement, 
which  yet  does  not  touch  that  conception  at  all,  I  may  here  give 
the  history  of  my  using  it.  It  is  about  forty  years  since  the  moral 
and_jpiritual  nature  of  the  atonement  first  dawned  on  my  mind. 
What  was  then  prominent  in  my  faith  and  in  my  teaching  was  the 
Umyersalitv  of  the  Atonement,  and  the  assured  peace  with  God 
f\j  which  is  quickened  by  the  faith  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins  revealed  in 
the  Gospel.     But  my  attention  was  drawn  to  the   nature  of  the 


NOTES. 


343 


atonement  in  tracing  out  the  moral  and  spiritual  power  of  faith  in  it, 
and  in  considering  its  immediate  and  direct  object  of  bringing  us  to 
God.  This  element  in  my  teaching,  however,  was  not  included 
when  that  teaching  was  called  in  question.  But  subsequently  it 
more  and  more  occupied  my  thoughts ;  gradually,  through  many 
years,  taking  the  form  which  it  presents  in  this  book,  viz.,  a  moral 
and  spiritual  atonement,  and  which  was  such  in  itself — not  simply 
accepted  as  such  because  of  the  moral  excellence  manifested  in 
Christ  in  making  it.  St.  Bernard  speaks  of  the  merits  of  Christ's 
death  being  the  mind  in  which  He  died  ;  and  recent  Roman  Catholic 
writers  dwell  on  the  merits  of  Christ's  satisfaction  and  sacrifice  for 
sin,  speaking  of  the  relation  of  the  excellence  that  was  in  Him  to  us 
and  our  demerits  in  a  way  that  though  free  from  the  charge  of  legal 
fiction,  has  in  it  the  essence  of  that  imputation  of  righteousness  with 
which  they  reproach  the  divines  of  the  Reformation.  I  have  not 
thus  conceived  of  merit  counter-balancing  demerit,  any  more  than  of 
penal  suffering  substituted  for  punishment.  That  the  self-sacrifice 
present  in  it  has  been  the  atoning  virtue  of  Christ's  sacrifice  is  a 
'  form  of  this  conception  of  merit  which  commends  itself  to  some ; 
though  perhaps  rather  as  a  part  of  the  man-ward  aspects  of  the 
atonement,  than  as  its  power  to  prevail  with  God.  Love  is  the  life 
in  which  the  atonement  was  made,  and  self-sacrifice,  which  is  of  the 
essence  of  love  (though  "  self-sacrifice  "  is  not  an  adequate  definition 
of  love),  is  the  form  in  which  love  is  seen  in  the  atonement.  But  the 
atonement  is  such,  not  because  of  the  self-sacrificing  love  manifested 
in  it,  but  as  that  love  taking  a  form  determined  by  our  need  as  God's 
offspring  alienated  from  Him  by  sin. 

A  continually  deepening  sense  of  the  importance  of  the  conclusions 
at  which  I  had  arrived  on  this  great  subject  at  last  induced  me  to 
write  on  it.  And  as  a  preparation  for  this  task,  I  thought  it  right  to 
acquaint  myself  as  much  as  possible  with  the  state  of  mind  on  the 
subject  of  the  atonement  in  which  I  might  expect  to  find  religious 
men.  In  the  reading  which  had  this  object  I  was  led  to  consider 
more  closely  than  I  had  previously  done  that  teaching  of  Luther,  of 
the  older  Calvinists,  and  of  the  modern  Calvinists,  to  the  considera- 
tion of  which  I  have  devoted  three  chapters  of  this  book. 

My  endeavour  was  to  discern  any  element  of  truth  present  in 
what  I  read,  and  to  separate  it  from  the  error  with  which  it  might  be 
combined  ;  and  thus,  the  words  of  President  Edwards,  "  either  an 
equivalent  punishment  or  an  equivalent  sorrow  and  repentance," 


K 


* 


344 


NOTES. 


suggested  to  me  that  that  earnest  and  deep  thinker  had  really  been 
on  the  verge  of  that  conception  of  a  moral  and  spjjitnal  ainnpmpni- 
which  was  occupying  my  own  thoughts.  Hence  the  use  I  have 
made  of  the  thought  of  the  alternative  of  repentance  as  it  passed 
before  the  mind  of  Edwards ;  not_for  a  moment  forgetting  the  *  r 
absence  of  the  sense  of  personal  guilt  in  all  that  I  ascribed  to  Christ, 
but  seeing  that  this  took  not  from  the  adequacy  of  the  atonement 
which  I  conceived  of  Him,  as  making  ;  while  the  presence  of  such 
a  consciousness,  had  it  been  possible,  would  have  altogether  changed 
the  character  of  His  work  as  a  suffering,  "  the  just  for  the  unjust." 
I  did  not  anticipate  misconception.  Both  my  positive  statements 
as  to  the  response  of  the  divine  mind  in  the  Son  to  the  divine  mind 
in  the  Father  in  relation  to  our  sins,  and  my  distinct  recognition  of 
the  absence  of  the  element  of  personal  consciousness  of  guilt,  made 
it  impossible  for  me  to  do  so. 

The  reviewer  regards  me  as,  while  rejecting  legal  fictions,  myself 
introducing  a  moral  fiction.  Of  this  I  certainly  had  no  conscious- 
ness or  suspicion  ;  nor  does  the  fairest  weighing  of  what  he  has 
written  of  which  I  am  capable  enable  me  to  see  that  to  this  I  have  ' 
made  any  approach.  I  can  see  no  moral  fiction  in  my  conception 
nf  the  diyir^e,  mind  in  Christ  in  His  response  to  the  divine  mind  in 
the  Father  in  relation  to  our  sins,  for  it  implies  no  fictitious  conscious- 
ness in  Christ,  as  if  He  were  feeling  our  sin  personally  and  literally 
His  own.  I  can  see  no  moral  fiction  in  the  response  to  the  Son's 
confession  of  our  sins  and  intercession  for  us  which  1  have  ascribed 
to  the  Father,  as  if,  while  so  responding,  He  were  not  seeing  the 
Son  in  His  personal  separation  from  sin,  or  were  hearing  His  con- 
fession as  the  confession  of  personal  guilt.  Any  such  fictions 
conceived  of  as  in  the  mind  of  the  Son  or  of  the  Father,  would 
destroy  my  whole  conception  of  the  atonement.  I  can  see  no  moral 
fiction  in  the  consciousness  of  the  believing  recipient  of  the  grace  of 
God  ;  for  the"  forgiveness  that  is  with  God  that  He  maybe  feared  " 
has  come  to  him  in  the  form  of  divine  light,— a  revelation  of  the 
Father  by  the  Son,  reconciling  him  to  God  by  the  power  of  what 
was  in  the  Father's  heart  towards  him  while  a  sinner.  The  reviewer 
says  (p.  497),  in  reference  to  personal  repentance,  "  In  proportion 
as  the  soul  is  pierced  with  a  sharper  contrition,  and  attains  a  deeper 
and  clearer  insight  into  her  own  unfaithful  disorder,  will  the  in- 
herent impossibility  of  any  foreign  exchange  of  righteousness  become 
apparent,  and  the  desire  to  be  shielded  from  punishment  will  pass 


NOTES.  345 

away  :  nor  is  the  conscience  truly  awakened  which  does  not  rather 
rush  into  the  arms  of  its  just  anguish  than  start  back  and  fly  away." 
The  reviewer  will  be  prepared  for  my  disclaiming  the  faith  of  "  any 
foreign  exchange  for  righteousness."  As  to  the  "  passing  away  "  of 
the  "  desire  to  be  shielded  from  punishment,"  I  seem  to  myself  to 
enter  into  both  the  words,  "  I  will  bear  the  indignation  of  the  Lord, 
because  I  have  sinned  against  Him,"  and  the  words,  "  If  Thou, 
Lord,  shouldest  mark  iniquities,  O  Lord,  who  shall  stand  ? '"  But  if 
the  "just  anguish"  of  "the  conscience  truly  awakened"  be  what 
the  reviewer  contemplates  as  the  "  punishment "  from  which  to 
be  "  shielded/'  the  repentant  sinner,  whose  repentance  is,  in  the 
language  of  ordinary  religious  speech,  not  legal,  but  evangelical, 
assuredly  does  not  "  start  back  and  fly  away  "  from  it,  although  he 
does  not  "  rush  into  its  arms,"  as  if  his  hope,  under  the  quickened 
sense  of  sin,  were  from  the  anguish  of  his  repentance,  and  not  from 
the  forgiveness  of  sin  in  which  he  believes.  Whatever  quickening 
of  conscience  he  may  have  attained  antecedent  to  faith,  it  has  been 
as  nothing  in  comparison  with  what,  in  the  light  of  redeeming  love 
he  is  now  experiencing  ;  light  which  at  once  reveals  the  evil  of  sin 
and  gives  strength  to  look  stedfastly  at  it. 

I  should  have  been  tempted  to  regret  my  noticing  at  all  the  idea 
of  an  alternative  repentance,  as  it  passed  before  the  mind  of 
Edwards,  could  I  refer  to  my  doing  so  any  obscuring  of  the  per- 
ception of  my  view  of  a  moral  and  spiritual  atonement  for  sin  to  so 
acute  a  mind  as  that  of  this  reviewer,  as  I  should  also  regret  what  I 
have  said  of  Luther's  teaching  could  I  accept,  as  I  cannot,  the 
reviewer's  theory  of  his  so  insisting  on  the  use  of  the  pronoun  "  our." 
But  any  inadequacy  in  his  apprehension  of  my  view  of  the  atonement 
I  rather  refer  to  a  condition  of  his  own  mind  which  makes  the  great 
measure  of  his  understanding  of  what  I  have  written  surprising,  as 
well  as  his  patience  in  labouring  to  understand  it  what  gives  him  a 
claim  on  my  thanks.  He  says  (p.  497)  "  we  are  firmly  convinced 
that  the  doctrine  of  ?nediationy — in  the  strict  sense  implying  transac- 
tions with  God  on  behalf  of  men,  as  well  as  in  the  opposite  direction, 
— cannot  be  harmonised  with  the  modern  individualism."  Under- 
standing, as  I  do,  what  he  thus  designates  as  the  modern  indivi- 
dualism as  a  form  of  metaphysical  or  psychological  thought  on  the 
subject  of  personality  accepted  by  the  reviewer,  which  precludes  the 
possibility  of  a  dealing  with  God  on  behalf  of  men  by  Christ,  my 
endeavour  to  shed  light   on  the   atonement  has  been  to  him  the 


346  NOTES. 

attempt  to  illustrate  and  commend  an  impossibility.  I  do  not 
know  enough  of  the  nature  of  the  difficulty  which  his  conception  of 
individualism  placed  in  the  way  of  his  receiving  the  full  impression 
of  what  I  have  written  to  attempt  to  deal  with  that  difficulty 
directly.  In  reading  the  latter  part  of  his  review,  I  have  felt  that 
the  "individualism"  and  the  "realism"  of  which  he  speaks  have 
been  to  me  a  Scylla  and  a  Charybdis,  between  which  I  have  steered 
in  the  dark,  unconsciously,  while  I  trust  safely.  I  have  had  no  con- 
ception of  an  "  individualism "  which  made  my  personality  so  cut 
me  off  from  Christ  that  I  could  not,  except  by  a  moral  or  legal  fiction, 
represent  Him  to  myself  as  under  the  pressure  of  my  sins,  both 
confessing  them  before  the  Father,  and  pleading  with  the  Father  on 
my  behalf.  I  had  no  conception  of  a  "  realism"  which  represented 
humanity  as  one  whole  in  such  a  sense  as  would  have  lost  to  me 
my  personality,  or  would  have  helped  me  to  the  faith  of  an  atone- 
ment by  justifying  me  in  looking  upon  Christ  as  "realism"  appears 
to  the  reviewer  to  have  led  Luther  to  do,  as  literally  "  the  one 
sinner,"  chargeable,  therefore,  with  all  the  sins  of  all  partakers  in 
humanity. 

The  reviewer  believes  that,  if  I  "  follow  out  the  natural  tenden- 
cies and  affinities  of  my  faith  I  must  rest  exclusively  at  last  in  the 
other  half  of  the  doctrine  which  exhibits  the  dealing  with  man  on 
behalf  of  God."  The  other  half  of  the  doctrine  has  not  to  my  mind 
that  adequacy  as  a  witnessing  for  God  to  man  apart  from  the  first 
half  which  it  has  to  the  reviewer's  mind.  In  meditating  on  the 
perfection  of  humanity  in  Christ,  I  have  often  felt  as  if  that  very 
perfection  was  a  pleading,  even  were  it  silent,  with  God  for  all 
humanity,  —  a  manifestation  of  a  capacity  in  humanity  having 
infinite  preciousness  in  the  sight  of  God,  and  the  purpose  and 
desire  to  realise  which  would  necessarily  have  been  present  in  His 
heart,  even  had  not  that  purpose  and  desire  already  existed  and 
manifested  itself  in  the  incarnation  of  which  that  perfection  was  the 
result.  But  I  have  not  conceived  of  this  perfection  as  what  couldbe 
silent.  On  the  contrary,  I  have  conceived  of  it  as  what  must  have 
moved  Him  in  whom  it  was  a  consciousness  to  all  that  I  have  re- 
presented as  the  atonement.  Were,  however,  individualism  that 
cutting  off  of  Christ  because  of  His  personality  from  us,  the  other 
partakers  in  humanity,  of  which  the  reviewer  conceives,  the  holy 
fountain  of  tears,  which  the  divine  mind  in  Christ  opened  in  His 
humanity,  might  still  have  flowed,  as  when  He  wept  over  Jerusalem 


NOTES.  347 

or  at  the  grave  of  Lazarus  ;  but  His  tears  would  have  had  no 
ascending  form  of  intercessory  prayer,  reaching  to  the  heart  of  the 
Father.  His  consciousness  of  individuality  would  have  as  to  our 
sin  imposed  on  Him  silence  towards  God,  forbidding  Him  to  plead 
with  God  for  men,  though  it  might  have  left  Him  free  to  witness  to 
men  for  God  in  His  personal  bearing  towards  men.  But,  in  that 
case,  even  the  witnessing  to  men  for  God  must  have  been  imperfect, 
must  have  left  untold  all  that  mind  of  God  which  Christ's  making 
His  soul  an  offering  for  sin,  and  the  Father's  accepting  thereof,  have 
brought  into  manifestation.  As  spirits,  our  spiritual  cleansing  can 
only  be  through  the  power  of  spiritual  light,  entering  into  us  in 
faith  :  and  whatever  spiritual  element  in  the  blood  that  cleanses,  or 
whatever  ray  of  the  light  of  the  mind  of  God  shining  in  the  death  of 
Christ  for  our  sins  is  left  out,  must  take  so  much  from  the  cleansing 
power  of  faith. 

As  to  the  "  tendencies  and  affinities  of  my  faith,"  I  have  no 
response  to  the  impression  expressed  by  the  reviewer ;  while  any 
development  of  my  sense  of  personality  into  his  conception  of 
individualism  would,  I  feel,  take  from  me,  not  only  all  that  is 
retrospective,  but  also  all  that  is  prospective  in  my  faith  in  the 
atonement, — my  faith  in  Christ  as  my  life  as  well  as  my  faith  in 
Christ  as  having  died  for  me.  He  speaks  (p.  498)  of  us  as  "  break- 
ing through  the  restraints  of  the  modern  individualism "  when  we 
"  strive  to  enter  into  that  literal  identification  of  Christ  with 
Christians  which  is  so  frequent  with  St.  Paul."  In  the  words  of 
St.  Paul,  "  I  am  crucified  with  Christ  :  nevertheless  I  live ;  yet  not 
I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me  :  and  the  life  which  I  now  live  in  the 
flesh  I  live  by  the  faith  of  the  Son  of  God,  who  loved  me,  and  gave 
Himself  for  me,"  the  assumption  of  the  relation  of  Christ  to  j 
humanity  along  with  a  recognition  of  our  personal  individuality, 
presents  to  my  mind  no  aspect  of  contradiction  ;  while  my  sense  of 
the  redeeming  love  for  which  I  am  a  debtor  requires  for  its  fullness, 
alike  the  personal  consciousness  of  the  words  "  Who  loved  me,  and 
gave  Himself  for  me"  and  the  faith  of  personal  union  with  Christ  of 
the  words  "  I  live,  yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me."  All  St.  Paul's 
representations- ot  our  relation  to  Christ  are  pervaded  by  the  same 
element  of  what,  in  the  light  of  modern  individualism,  would,  it 
appears,  be  regarded  as  a  contradiction  ;  and  this  the  reviewer  seems 
to  recognise  as  the  fact. 

It  is  a  natural  result  of  recent  modifications  of  men's  conception  of 


348  .        NOTES. 

inspiration  that  criticism  is  seen  passing  from  the  words  of  inspired 
writers  to  their  thoughts.  Whatever  abuse  may  be  connected  with 
this  change,  it  is  not  without  some  advantage  ;  in  as  much  as  the 
words  of  the  sacred  writers  now  run  less  risk  of  being  twisted  or 
distorted.  So  long  as  we  contend  for  the  divine  truth  of  the  words, 
there  is  a  temptation  to  force  them  to  say  what  we  are  willing  to 
believe,  and  resistance  to  light  may  take  this  form.  But  this 
temptation  ceases  if  men  feel  at  liberty  to  receive  their  natural 
meaning  without  being  obliged  to  receive  it  as  absolute  truth.  And 
this  liberty  those  critics  obviously  reach  who  feel  that  an  Apostle 
may  have  meant  what  he  seems  to  mean,  but  may  have  been  mis- 
taken because  of  the  limits  within  which  he  thought.  This  new 
freedom  in  criticism  removes  questions  of  truth  from  the  realm  of 
philology  to  that  of  psychology  and  metaphysics.  While  we  are 
detained  in  the  former,  our  Lord's  words,  "  I  am  the  vine,  ye  are 
the  branches  :  .  .  .  without  me  ye  can  do  nothing,"  could  be 
emptied  of  their  literal  meaning  only  by  being  read  as  what  might 
express  our  obligations  to  our  Lord  as  a  teacher,  and  not  our  relation 
to  Him  as  our  life.  But  now  the  latter  may  be  recognised  as  the 
meaning  with  which  they  were  written,  while  still  it  may  be  refused 
as,  if  not  implying  an  error  in  our  Lord's  own  thinking,  at  least 
implying  such  an  error  in  St.  John  ;  whose  conception  of  his  Lord's 
teaching,  it  will  be  said,  is  all  that  remains  to  us,  while  that  con- 
ception may  have  been  affected  by  any  such  ignorance  of  the  true 
nature  of  personality  on  the  part  of  St.  John,  as  the  realism  ascribed 
to  Luther.  So  also  as  to  St.  Paul's  saying,  "  When  it  pleased  God 
who  separated  me  from  my  mother's  womb,  and  called  me  by  His 
grace,  to  reveal  His  Son  in  ?ne?  his  words  may  be  received  as  mean- 
ing what  they  seem  to  mean,  while  that  meaning  itself  may  be 
refused  because  in  contradiction  to  modern  individualism,  and  no 
presence  of  Christ  in  St.  Paul  be  conceived  of  but  as  men  might  speak 
of  a  presence  of  Socrates  in  Plato.  With  a  due  sense  of  our  intellec- 
tual limits,  a  due  reverence  for  conscience,  and  the  faith  that  spiritual 
things  are  only  spiritually  discerned,  I  should  have  no  fear  of  psy- 
chology or  of  metaphysical  thought,  even  in  its  most  difficult  region  of 
ontology,  any  more  than  I  have  of  scientific  investigation,  so  long  as. 
it  is  realised  that  '*  through  faith  we  know  that  the  worlds  were, 
framed  by  the  word  of  God."  Science  venturing  beyond  its  due 
limits,  may  seerrTto  itself  entitled  to  sweep  away  our  faith  in  the 
supernatural,    and   so    speculation,    in    the    region    of  mind,  going 


NOTES.  349 

beyond  its  due  limit,  may  preclude  faith  in  the  atonement  by  the 
assumed  impossibility  of  such  a  thing  in  consistency  with  the  manner 
of  our  being  as  persons.  But,  as  Science  never  can  reveal  the  living 
God  to  us,  nor  by  its  analysis  reach  to  anything  visible  or  invisible, — 
a  palpable,  material  substance  or  a  force  of  which  our  senses  can 
take  no  cognisance,  and  the  existence  of  which  is  to  us  inferential, — 
of  which  it  can  say,  "This  is  God  ;"  so  neither  can  metaphysical 
thought  reveal  to  us  the  manner  of  our  own  being  as  God's  offspring, 
who  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  in  Him,  or  the  relations 
to  us  into  which  the  Eternal  Son  has  come  that  He  might  be  in  us 
the  life  of  Sonship. 


NOTE  TO  CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE   DEATH    OF   CHRIST. 

I  have  endeavoured  in  this  chapter  to  express  what  I  am  able  to 
see  of  light  in  Christ's  tasting  death — for  our  sins — in  the  eternal 
life. 

The  sinless  dying  for  sin  is  that  in  the  history  of  Christ's  suffering, 
the  just  for  the  unjust,  which  most  approaches  the  conception  of  the 
innocent  being  punished  for  the  guilty.  We  also  feel  that  His  tast- 
ing death,  the  wages  of  sin,  is  that  in  the  experience  of  Christ  in  His 
bearing  of  our  sins  which  is  most  out  of  sight  to  us.  In  those 
elements  of  the  atonement  which  were  purely  conditions  of  the  mind 
of  Christ,  however  much  we  must  feel  that  we  come  infinitely 
short  in  our  real  realisation  of  them  because  we  come  infinitely  short 
of  the  mind  that  was  in  Him,  yet,  partaking  in  it  at  all  even  in  the 
smallest  measure,  we  know  as  to  its  essence  what  that  mind  was  : — 
just  as  when  we  say  "  God  is  love"  we,  if  in  any  measure  dwelling 
in  love,  use  the  words  in  true  light,  though  the  love  of  which  we 
speak  is  infinite  and  passeth  knowledge.  But  there  was  that  in 
Christ  tasting  death  the  wages  of  sin  as  to  which  we  have  net  the 
same  consciousness  ;  while  we  understand  how  this  was  a  perfecting 
of  the  divine  response  in  humanity  to  the  divine  condemnation  of 
sin. 

Yet  whatever  remains  dark  to  us  as  going  beyond  our  conscious- 
ness, our  attention  is  kept  ever  fixed  on  the  death  of  Christ,  as  it  is 
on  His  resurrection  from  the  dead  ;  the  one  in  relation  to  the 
remission  of  sins,  as  the  other  in  relation  to  the  gift  of  eternal  life. 


350  NOTES. 

I  have  ventured  to  speak  of  what  the  atonement  might  have  been 
had  we  been  only  spirits,  and  how  Christ's  bearing  of  our  sins  on 
His  Spirit  before  the  Father,  confessing  them  and  making  interces- 
sion for  us  according  to  the  will  of  God,  needed  to  be  perfected  in 
His  death  for  our  sins  because  of  the  manner  of  our  being  as  partakers 
in  flesh  and  blood  (Heb.  ii.  14).  Our  redemption  has  two  aspects — 
distinct,  while  inseparably  related.  It  is  the  history  of  spirits,  Gods 
offspring,  alienated  from  Him  to  whom  the  light  of  life  has  come  in 
the  revelation  of  their  own  evil  state,  and  of  the  holy  love  of  the 
Father  in  what  that  love  has  felt  regarding  them  in  their  alienation  ; 
the  knowledge  of  themselves  and  of  their  God  shining  to  them  in 
the  mediation  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  quickening  in  them  the  life 
of  sonship  in  raising  them  to  that  eternal  life  which  is  communion 
with  the  Father  and  the  Son  in  the  Spirit  ; — this,  if  we  may  venture 
to  contemplate  it  apart,  is  the  aspect  of  our  redemption  as  spirits. 
The  other  aspect  of  our  redemption  is  that  which  it  presents  to  us 
when  we  take  into  view  the  whole  of  our  composite  being,  and  the 
meaning  in  relation  to  it  of  the  words  "  The  wages  of  sin  is  death  ; 
but  the  gift  of  God  is  eternal  life  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 
"  For  since  by  man  came  death,  by  man  came  also  the  resurrection 
of  the  dead."  This  looking  at  the  history  of  our  redemption  first  as 
we  are  spirits,  and  then  in  the  totality  of  our  being  as  men,  I  feel  to 
have  some  help  in  it  in  considering  the  death  of  Christ  for  our  sins 
and  our  resurrection  from  the  dead  through  Him,  as  also  our  present 
relation  to  Him  as  having  died  in  Him  and  having  our  lives  hid  with 
Christ  in  God.  We  see  on  the  one  hand  sin  and  death,  on  the  other 
righteousness  and  resurrection  from  the  dead.  We  see  ourselves 
related  to  both  ;  to  what  is  on  the  one  side  in  being  sinners,  to  what 
is  on  the  other  side  as  partakers  in  redemption.  We  pass  from  the 
one  to  the  other  through  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Christ.  Thus 
our  individual  existences  and  histories  are  not,  so  to  speak,  a  number 
of  parallel  lines,  each  first  in  darkness — the  darkness  of  sin  and  death, 
and  then  in  light — the  light  of  righteousness  and  the  resurrection 
life  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  lines  of  our  being  converge  in  Christ's 
death  and  radiate  from  Christ's  resurrection.  This  is  a  very  imper- 
fect image,  but  may  help  us  in  conceiving  our  relation  to  Christ  as 
distinguished  from  a  manner  of  being  in  which  we  would  be  all 
separate  individualities,  each  having  its  own  history  of  first  tasting 
sin,  and  sorrow,  and  death  :  and  then  righteousness,  and  a  resurrec- 
tion life.     The  distinction  which  I  am  trying  to  mark  becomes  more 


NOTES.  351 

palpable  if  we  contrast  the  idea  of  each  individual  man  as  passing 
through  his  successive  stages  of  being  in  the  isolation  presented  to 
us  in  the  history  of  the  insect  which  we  see  as  a  caterpillar,  a  chry- 
salis, and  a  butterfly,  with  that  relation  to  Christ  in  which  we  exist, 
— sin  and  death  ours — righteousness  and  life  His, — and  He  coming 
into  such  relations  to  our  sin  and  death  as  issue  in  our  partaking  in 
His  righteousness  and  life.  I  know  that  the  former  conception 
has  found  more  acceptance  with  some  men  in  their  speculative 
thinking  on  the  subject  of  humanity.  The  latter,  however,  is  what 
the  Scriptures  present  to  us.  It  is  very  clear  as  also  very  practical 
in  the  teaching  of  the  first  founders  of  the  Church,  and  has  continued 
to  be  the  teaching  of  the  Church  all  along,  though  presented  in 
various  aspects,  and  often  representing  our  relation  to  Christ  in  a 
way  that  has  been  artificial  and  forensic — a" mere  arrangement,  and 
not  what  affects  the  manner  of  our  being  to  its  inmost  depths.  I 
have  used  an  image  for  illustration,  from  which  I  expect  some  help, 
but  which  is  indeed  very  imperfect.  A  part  of  its  imperfection  lies 
in  this,  that  our  relation  to  Christ  does  not  begin  in  resurrection  ; 
for  He  who  is  the  resurrection  and  the  life  is  present  in  us,  our  true 
and  proper  life  from  the  first,  and  is  to  be  known  by  us  as  our  life  now 
in  the  spirit ;  while  the  perfecting  of  our  participation  in  Him  waits 
for  our  resurrection  from  the  dead  in  spiritual  bodies  like  to  His 
glorious  body.  Now  we  know  Christ  as  our  true  life,  as  it  is  written 
"  God  hath  given  to  us  eternal  life,  and  this  life  is  in  His  Son.  He 
that  hath  the  Son  hath  life,"  while  our  faith  and  hope  embrace  the 
perfecting  of  the  gift  of  eternal  life  when  this  corruptible  shall  put 
on  incorruption,  and  this  mortal  immortality. 

We  must  be  thankful  that  a  deeper  understanding  of  our  relations 
to  Christ,  and  conviction  that  the  manner  of  our  being  can  only  be 
understood  in  their  light,  is  taking  the  place  of  former  superficial 
and  merely  forensic  representations  of  these  relations.  This  is  a 
fruit  of  that  change  in  our  faith  in  the  divinity  of  Christ  which  I 
have  noticed  above  (Introduction),  viz.,  the  change  of  regarding  the 
incarnation  not  so  much  as  a  mystery,  the  faith  of  which  tests  the 
humility  of  our  reason,  as  rather  light  in  which  to  exercise  our  reason 
in  all  our  thinking  regarding  our  relation  to  God  and  the  manner  of 
our  being  as  His  offspring.  Approaching  from  this  side  the  death 
and  resurrection  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  the  relation  of  His  death  to 
our  sins  and  of  His  resurrection  to  our  participation  in  His  right- 
eousness, we  come  to  see  these  events  in  the  development  of  the 


lA 


352  NOTES. 

incarnation  in  our  redemption  as  the  first  Christians  saw  them,  and 
to  understand  the  constant  references  to  them  which  meet  us  in  what 
we  possess  of  the  teaching  of  the  Apostles,  and  the  practical  nature 
of  these  references,  and  the  immediate  and  direct  power  which  the 
faith  of  Christ's  dying  for  their  sins,  and  being  raised  again  for  their 
justification)  have  had  in  determining  the  manner  of  their  religion, 
and  causing  it  to  be  a  fellowship  in  the  mind  of  Christ.  u  Forasmuch 
then  as  Christ  hath  suffered  for  us  in  the  flesh,  arm  yourselves  like- 
wise with  the  same  mind."  "  For  in  that  He  died,  He  died  unto 
sin  once  :  but  in  that  He  liveth.  He  liveth  unto  God.  Likewise 
reckon  ye  also  yourselves  to  be  dead  unto  sin,  but  alive  unto  God 
through  Jesus'  Christ  our  Lord." 

In  tracing  our  Lords  life  on  to  its  close  as  the  two  threads  of 
sonship  towards  God  and  brotherhood  towards  man,  I  have  marked, 
as  the  last  ray  of  its  light  as  brotherhood  to  man,  the  prayer  in 
death  "  Father  forgive  them  for  they  know  not  what  they  do  ; "  the 
light  in  this  prayer  being  bright  to  us  in  proportion  as  we  realise  the 
shame  of  the  Cross,  and  all  He  suffered  at  the  hands  of  wicked  men. 
In  like  manner,  the  eternal  life  in  which  He  tasted  death  as  it  was 
sonship  towards  the  Father  is  last  visible  to  us  in  the  prayer  "Father 
into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit."  The  trial  through  which  the 
faith  which  these  words  express  had  borne  the  Son  of  God,  in  that 
tasting  of  death  by  which  death  has  been  abolished,  rests  in  part  to 
us  under  the  "  darkness  which  was  over  all  the  land "  from  "  the 
sixth  hour  unto  the  ninth  hour"  while  the  intensity  of  that  trial  is 
indicated  by  the  cry  "  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken 
me?"  I  have  gone  (chap,  xii.)  to  the  Psalm  from  which  these 
words  are  quoted  for  what  light  it  may  shed  on  this  most  solemn 
darkness  ;  and  I  appear  to  myself  to  have  found  help  in  it.  But 
even  if  my  readers  feel  otherwise,  and  that  my  understanding  of  the 
Psalm  has  not  commended  itself  to  them,  they  may  still  feel  that, 
whatever  remaining  darkness  we  may  be  conscious  to,  even  when 
most  light  falls  for  us  on  the  death  of  Christ  for  our  sins,  we  must 
guard  against  the  temerity  that  would  put  into  that  darkness  what  is 
not  revealed  to  have  been  in  it,  and  what  is  not  in  harmony  with 
what  we  are  enabled  to  see  in  it.  With  this  temerity  those,  surely, 
are  chargeable  who  have  placed  in  that  darkness  an  experience  on  the 
part  of  the  Son  of  wrath  from  the  Father  either  commensurate  with 
or  an  equivalent  for  the  everlasting  torments  regarded  as  the  punish- 
ment of  the   wicked.     Apart  from  other  objections,  we  must  feel 


NOTES.  353 

that  such  an  element  in  the  cup  given  to  Christ  to  drink  would  have 
overborne  all  other  elements,  and  made  the  place  given  to  these  by 
the  sacred  writer  inexplicable  (Heb.  xii.  2).  But  the  expressions, 
Cross  of  Christ,  blood  of  Christ,  death  of  Christ,  could  never  have 
been  read  as  covering  such  a  meaning  were  it  not  for  the  error  of 
thinking  of  death  the  wages  of  sin  as  death  temporal,  spiritual  and 
eternal.  Let  any  one  weigh  the  words  "  He  tasted  death  for  every 
man,"  and  then  ask  himself  "  does  death  here  mean  death  temporal, 
spiritual  and  eternal/'  and  he  will  feel  it  impossible  to  give  an 
affirmative  answer. 

Mr.  Oxenham  says  in  reference  to  the  teaching  of  the  Reformers 
on  the  subject  of  the  atonement  (p.  119).  "  It  was  but  the  natural 
and  logical  inference  from  this  strange  notion  of  vicarious  substituted 
punishment,  that  Christ  endured  in  His  Passion  the  pains  of  Hell  ; 
and  this  blasphemous  corollary  is  distinctly  put  forward  by  Quenstedt, 
Gerhard,  and  Calvin,  as  a  necessary  part  of  the  idea  of  satisfaction. 
Well  might  Bellarmine  call  it  a  new  and  unheard-of  heresy  !"  New 
in  this  definite  and  repulsive  form  it  may  have  been  ;  yet  the  language 
used  in  connection  with  the  idea  of  Christ's  paying  the  debt  we  owe 
to  the  divine  justice,  and  the  earlier  idea  of  His  paying  a  ransonffor 
us  to  Satan,  may  well  have  prepared  the  way  for  the  conception  thus 
denounced.  Besides,  men's  occupation  of  mind  with  the  recorded 
sufferings  of  Christ  had  been  so  much  with  their  physical  aspect  and 
simply  as  sufferings,  without  the  discernment  of  any  higher  nature 
in  them  in  respect  of  which  they  were  a  sacrifice  for  sin,  that  there 
was  no  protection  from  any  exaggerated  form  of  thought  on  the 
subject  of  Christ's  sufferings  for  our  sins  :  while  the  difference  of 
view  between  the  church  and  the  Reformers  as  to  the  relation  of  the 
atonement  to  sin — the  former  limiting  that  relation  to  original  sin, 
the  latter  holding  it  "  to  be  a  sacrifice  not  only  for  original  guilt, 
but  also  for  the  actual  sins  of  men " — naturally  tended  to  the  ex- 
tremest  conception  on  the  part  of  the  Reformers  of  what  was  implied 
in  Christ's  paying  the  debt  we  owe  to  the  justice  of  God. 

The  Reformers  felt  that  a  divided  confidence,  resting  in  part  on 
the  atonement,  in  part  on  what  we  did  ourselves  to  obtain  remission 
of  our  actual  sins,  could  never  be  a  true  peace  with  God.  For  they 
felt  that  the  part  thus  assigned  to  man  himself  was  one  as  to  which 
it  was  impossible  to  be  assured  that  it  was  adequately  performed  ; 
nay,  as  to  which  it  was  self-ignorance  ever  to  hope  for  such  an  assur- 
ance, seeing  that  all  increase  of  true  self-knowledge  deepened  the 


354  NOTES. 

conviction  that  we  could  bring  nothing  to  God  in  this  way  worthy  of 
His  acceptance.  Even  the  love  to  Christ  which  men's  occupation 
with  His  sufferings  for  them  was  fitted  to  quicken  they  found  to  be 
hindered  by  the  motive  for  cultivating  it,  viz.,  the  perfecting  their 
faith  by  charity  (Note  II.).  On  the  other  hand  they  found  that  in 
looking  for  forgiveness  of  sin  exclusively  to  Christ  and  His  sacrifice 
for  sin,  they  tasted  at  once  the  liberty  of  the  faith  of  forgiven  sin, 
and  entered  into  a  peace  with  God  of  which  these  were  the  elements, 
a  sense  of  His  infinite  love  and  free  grace,  and  of  their  own  utter 
unworthiness. 

A  sense  of  the  infinite  love  and  free  grace  of  God  and  of  our  own 
*  sin  as  what  casts  us  altogether  for  hope  on  that  grace,  and  a  conse- 
quent exclusive  trust  in  Christ, — these  were  the  living  elements  of 
the  faith  of  the  Reformers.  And  we  cannot  allow  that  faith  or  their 
work  to  be  depreciated  because  in  their  conceptions  of  the  sacrifice 
of  Christ  for  sin  they  developed  the  idea  of  Christ  paying  the  debt 
which  we  owed  to  divine  justice  in  a  form  the  repulsiveness  of  which 
we  do  not  deny,  or  because  the  doctrine  of  merit  in  Christ  compen- 
sating demerit  in  us  was  developed  by  them  into  that  of  imputation 
of  righteousness. 

I  have  said  (Note  II.)  that  a  successful  dealing  with  the  present 
reaction  in  favour  of  Romanism  can  only  be  through  our  reverting 
to  the  Reformation  question  of  justification  by  faith  alone  ;  and  that 
it  should  be  more  easy  for  us  to  occupy  that  ground  in  proportion  as 
we  may  have  attained  to  a  higher  and  truer  conception  of  Salvation 
— of  that  grace  of  God  in  Christ  which  faith  apprehends.  A  moral 
and  spiritual  atonement  stands  in  direct  relation  to  a  moral  and 
spiritual  salvation,  Christ's  giving  Himself  for  our  sins  to  our  having 
in  Him  the  life  of  Sonship.  This  directness  in  the  relation  of  the 
remission  of  sins  to  eternal  life  accords  and  alo?ie  accords  with  the 
language  of  scripture.  The  death  of  Christ  has  been  "  the  opening 
of  a  way  into  the  holiest."  "  The  blood  of  Christ,  who  through  the 
Eternal  Spirit  offered  Himself  without  spot  to  God,  purges  the 
conscience  from  dead  works  to  serve  the  living  God/'  "  We  are 
brought  nigh  to  God  by  the  death  of  His  Son."  "  Christ  suffered 
the  just  for  the  unjust  that  He  might  bring  us  to  God."  This  direct 
reference  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  to  our  participation  in  the  divine 
life  contrasts  strikingly  with  the  conception  of  that  sacrifice  as 
having  as  its  first  and  immediate  object  the  bearing  as  our  substitute 
the  punishmenrbf  our  sins.     And  iUs  because  of  the  judicial  and 


NOTES.  355 

forensic  character  of  the  question  of  peace  with  God  as  that  question 
was  regarded  by  the  Reformers  that  I  speak  of  faith  in  the  grace  of 
God  as  being  now  cherished  in  a  purer  light  rendering  faith  more 
truly  what  the  Apostle  contemplates  when  he  says,  "  We  all,  with 
open  face  beholding  as  in  a  glass  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  are  changed 
unto  the  same  image  from  glory  to  glory,  even  as  by  the  Spirit  of 
the  Lord."  When  I  say  now,  of  course  I  only  mean  a  more  perfect 
return  to  faith  as  it  was  at  the  beginning  than  the  Reformers  attained. 
We  do  not  retrace  their  steps  ;  for,  still  less  if  possible  than  they 
can  we  allow  penances  or  mortifications  or  deeds  of  any  kind,  even 
deeds  of  charity,  to  be  any  element  in  our  confidence  towards  God. 
To  know  Christ  as  our  life  and  that  life  as  the  life  of  sonship  more 
completely  shuts  out  from  our  trust  in  Christ  all  foreign  elements 
than  any  meaning  of  the  expression  "  trust  in  Christ "  short  of  this 
ever  could. 

I  may  here  add  that  as  a  moral  and  spiritual  atonement  is  directly 
related  to  a  moral  and  spiritual  salvation,  so  its  value  is  proved  only 
in  the  experience  of  such  a  salvation.  It  is  in  coming  to  the  Father 
by  the  Son  that  we  know  Christ's  preciousness  as  the  way,  and  the 
truth,  and  the  life.  Hence  it  follows  that  the  habit  of  turning  to  the 
thought  of  the  atonement  for  comfort  under  the  sense  of  distance 
from  the  Father  when  the  comfort  sought  is,  as  I  may  say,  rather 
judicial  than  filial  is  injurious  and  to  be  guarded  against.  Such 
comfort  is  always  unhealthy  and  foreign  to  the  life  that  lies  in  God's 
favour. 

I  hope  that  some  help  has  been  added  for  the  understanding  of  the 
immediate  relation  of  the  atonement  to  the  life  of  sonship,  in  what 
in  the  introduction  to  this  edition  1  have  said  of  religion  as  the 
occupying  of  our  right  place  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  Help  to 
occupy  that  place  aright,  not  solace  in  not  occupying  it,  is  the 
bread  of  life  that  came  down  from  Heaven  that  a  man  might  eat 
thereof  and  not  die.  Philosophy  has  been  called  a  homesickness. 
Christianity  places  us  in  our  true  home.  "Thou  hast  been  our 
dwelling-place  in  all  generations."  The  knowledge  that  in  God  we 
live  and  move  and  have  our  being  is  the  conscious  peace  of  home  to 
our  spirits  when  we  know  God  as  revealed  in  Christ. 


THE   END. 


y 


LIST  OF  BOOKS  QUOTED,  WITH  THE  EDITIONS  FROM 
WHICH  THE  QUOTATIONS  ARE  TAKEN. 

Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.  By  Martin  Luther. 
London:  Printed  for  Mathews  &  Leigh,  Strand;  by  S.  Gosnell,  Little 
Queen  Street.      1810. 

The  Works  of  John  Owen,  D.D.  Edited  by  the  Rev.  William  H. 
Goold,  Edinburgh.  (Vol.  X.)  Johnstone  &  Hunter,  London  and  Edin- 
burgh.    1852. 

The  Works  of  President  Edwards,  in  4  vols.  A  Reprint  of  the  Wor- 
cester Edition,  with  valuable  Additions,  and  a  copious  General  Index. 
New  York:  Leavitt,  Trow,  &  Co.,  194  Broadway;  London:  Wiley  & 
Putnam.     1844. 

Four  Discourses  on  the  Sacrifice  and  Priesthood  of  Jesus  Christ,  and 
the  Atonement  and  Redemption  thence  accruing.  By  John  Pye  Smith, 
D.D.,  F.R.S.     Third  Edition.     London  :  Jackson  &  Walford.      1847. 

Lectures  on  Divine  Sovereignty,  Election,  the  Atonement,  Justification, 
and  Regeneration.  By  George  Payne,  LL.D.,  Exeter.  Second  Edition. 
London:  James  Dinnis,  62  Paternoster  Row.      1838. 

On  the  Extent  of  the  Atonement,  in  its  relation  to  God,  and  the  Universe. 
By  the  Rev.  Thomas  W.  Jenkyn.  Second  Edition.  London:  John 
Snow,  26  Paternoster  Row.      1837. 

Discourses  on  the  Nature  and  Extent  of  the  Atonement  of  Christ.  By 
Ralph  Wardlaw,  D.D.  Fourth  Thousand.  Glasgow:  James  Mac- 
Lehose.     1844. 

A  Treatise  on  the  Physical  Cause  of  the  Sufferings  of  Christ,  and  its 
relation  to  the  Principles  and  Practice  of  Christianity.  By  William 
Stroud,  M.D.  London  :  Hamilton,  Adams,  &  Co.,  33  Paternoster  Row. 
1847. 

Institutes  of  Theology.  By  the  late  Thomas  Chalmers,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
in  2  Vols.  Vol.  II.  Published  for  Thomas  Constable,  by  Sutherland  & 
Knox,  Edinburgh.      Hamilton,  Adams,  &  Co.,  London.      1849. 

The  Atoning  Work  of  Christ.     By  William  Thomson,  M.A.,  Oxford. 


GLASGOW:    PRINTED   AT  THE   UNIVERSITY  PRESS  BV  ROBERT  MACLEHOSE  AND  CO. 


ivy 

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